Van Morrison

Astral Weeks- Live

(Listen to the Lion)

March 25th, 2009

The original of this album hails from 1968, and aside from being a truly outstanding album in all regards, it is one of the most important albums to me personally- to the point of sanctity. The album itself deals with new and young love, and also the loss there of, and it remains the soundtrack for me of when I first fell in love. Powerful stuff indeed. The lyrics are very stream-of-consciousness, very abstract and poetic and more about summoning images than providing a narrative story. Couple that with the fairly skeletal jazz-based music backing (acoustic guitar, upright bass, drums, flute) it and you have a very ethereal and often mystical album, completely unique in the broad canon of “rock” music. While it was not met with much commercial success upon release, over the years it has become a very important record- cracking the top 20 in the 500 Best Albums according to Rolling Stone, and even landing the #2 spot in the 100 best according to Mojo. It holds a dear place in the hearts of Van fans, but he does not often revisit the songs, and so to have the entire album played here at one time (on it’s 40th anniversary) is monumental. 40 years is a long time, but this re-examination of it retains all the original passion, and while Van’s voice has changed over the years, it fills out the songs in a deeper way now- like the time passing has added to his emotional experience of the songs. It sounds more like a long-term appreciation of love as opposed to a wide-eyed younger brush with it. This is a grown up version of the original concept, and serves as an excellent companion to the original. It’s noteworthy to mention that amazing jazz guitar player on the original, Jay Berliner, plays on this version, too. Any who already appreciate Astral Weeks will want to get a copy of this most definitely.

-Mark Whiteley

Standout track: Astral Weeks (original)