The title track opens the set with that familiar up-and-down acoustic bassline and Jay Berliner's nylon string guitar playing blues and jazz runs as Van keeps the first rhythm guitar chair down. His well-seasoned lower-register voice turned the wonder of a boy in 1968 into the spiritual receptivity and wisdom of a man who has weathered 40 more seasons of discontent and heartbreak. He extended most tunes, turning some into mini-suites while tightening others. Morrison took the original track order and shuffled it to make it flow better live. With only one full-band rehearsal, Van responded by bringing this mythic material to life with a rock showman's sense of audacity, a poet's vulnerability, a jazzman's sense of timing, and the mastery of a singer who knows where to find the hidden magic in his material. Van Morrison's Astral Weeks had never been performed as a cycle before these performances at the Hollywood Bowl. When an artist decides to perform a classic album in concert, the possibilities for disaster are myriad.
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