God it's hot today. I was sitting outside in the yard, but I have come indoors for the coolness. Talking about cool, I am listening to Too Long In Exile by Van Morrison because I saw on a Van Facebook group page that it was released 28 years ago today on June 8th 1993. I remember clearly a show Van did about a month or two later at Lydiard Park near Swindon, only a stones throw from Van's house at the time in the village of Little Somerton. I think that was only the first or second ever gig since Brian Kennedy joined the band. Brian sang some songs with Van, then one of his own called Captured which was excellent. This was one of the great 'lost' Van concerts because I don't think a tape exists of it. You could just walk up to the front and stand just a few feet away from Van and dig the music. That's why I loved those outdoor Van gigs in the summertime in England when Van cuts loose and blows a fuse around the regions again. I did notice a change that night in Van's audience which was less of the hippy types and more of the Radio 2 chattering classes and this was to get worse as the years went by. That particular night if my memory serves me well Van opened with the title track from the new album and Ball And Chain and later Lonely Avenue. These songs are all great. To get to the actual album, it starts really promisingly with Too Long In Exile which has a relentless beat, great harmonica and mentions some of the Irish heroes such as Georgie Best, Alex Hurricane Higgins and Samuel Beckett. Then one of Van's better moaning songs which recall his years at Bang records Big Time Operators. What do you expect when you sign to a company called Bang? Ball And Chain is great, and then a nice version of Lonely Avenue.
To my ears In The Forest is a similar song to Orangefield, and Till We Get The Healing Done is an attempt to recapture former glories of Van's spiritual quest, but Van was reaching the end of the road in that search for the time being and was just forcing the issue here. The two tracks with his friend John Lee Hooker are not very good. Gloria is not a patch on the original, so I think they could have chosen different songs. Van should have done a whole official album with John Lee which might have been a classic. I love their version of I Cover The Waterfront. The outstanding track on this uneven album is Before The World Was Made in which Van turns a great poem by W.B. Yeats into a wonderful song. I love this song which seems to be more at home on the album Now And In Time To Be. a tribute to W.B. Yeats. I think there is some great music on this album, but it lacks consistency of mood, and doesn't seem to know where it wants to go. It is a mish-mash of different styles. Everyone has their own opinion though on albums. Some people might think it is one of Van's best, and they are entitled to that view.
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| Unofficial Album. |
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