For many, the prospect of catching Van Morrison live offers multi-level lures — a chance to bask in a great songbook of hits and “deep cuts,” pay pilgrimage to a living legend (going strong at 74), and access personal nostalgia. My Morrison-in-concert trail goes back to The Granada Theatre in the early ’70s as an impressionable, already-smitten young teen.
But when Morrison stopped in at the Santa Barbara Bowl on Saturday, his show — more generous and emotionally loose than the last Bowl visit — proved deeper and more cosmic than expected. Emerging in a blue fedora and shades and with his saxophone, Morrison was in tight cahoots with his skilled seven-piece band. His vocal gymnastics sometimes involved poetic, improvisatory side trips: freely associative, even mildly Joyceian culture/language/spirit channeling, included bows to Big Joe Turner alongside references to the “ancient highway” and “golden sand … your God and my Lord.” Elsewhere, he alluded to having unclear thought trains before blurting out the non sequitur “Here come da fuzz,” plucked from TV’s Laugh-In.
There were the usual sampler-plate radio hits, from the crowd-juicing one-two punch of “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Gloria” to close to a rendition of “Moondance” with extra swing sauce, “Days Like This,” and “Have I Told You Lately.” He ventured down various idiomatic pathways making up his sound, including vintage R&B, Chicago blues, epic folk rambles, and heaping doses of gospel spirit. A few of those ingredients go into the magical stew, for instance, that is “Saint Dominic’s Preview,” a concert highlight.