Van Morrison's Saturday show in York was one of the best my wife and I have ever seen.

Friday's show was good, if a trifle workmanlike. Saturday night's was inspired. We knew it would be from the way the band and the main man walked on stage: jaunty swagger replacing Friday's shuffle. The first verse of the first song confirmed it: Van scatting as if his life depended on it. We've never seen a show take off so quickly. Van had a point to prove.

Maybe he'd been shaken by a disgracefully negative review of Friday's gig in the Evening Press on Saturday - song selection "arrogant, repetitive and self-indulgent"..." stage presence of a "microphone stand", written by an expert who claims to be a 20 year member of the Van club, "without ever having seen him live".

Come again? In England you can see a Van gig about once a month so this 'fan' has chosen to miss 250 gigs!

Maybe the crowd had also read the bile and were keen to prevent a repetition, for they were excellent; respectful and more appreciative.

Whatever the motivation, everybody in the Barbican was really up for it on Saturday night.

It was magical.

Gerry Smith,

St Albans,

Herts.

see COMMENT & REVIEW 'Barbican is the big attraction'

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.