"St. Dominic's Preview"

I was massively into Van Morrison back in the early 90s, but for whatever reason (apart from occasionally putting on Astral Weeks or "Brown-Eyed Girl"), he's sort of faded out of my musical awareness (as he became a grumpy Blues Brothers clone churning out largely forgettable albums). But I just thought to check this out again, had forgotten how wonderful it is...

Now I'm going to have to work my way through Tupelo Honey, Veedon Fleece, Common One, etc.

The only time I attended Glastonbury Festival was also the only time I ever saw him live (1992). I watched him playing on the Pyramid Stage while I was sat up in a tree, beautiful cloud formations drifting overhead. An absolutely perfect setting, the Man himself "down by Avalon" on a beautiful summer's day — but a bit of a disappointing set, lots of covers ("Be-Bop-A-Lula"?!). Still, there was an inspired version of Dylan's "It's All Over Now Baby Blue", and another moment where that thing happened with his voice...

And while we're on the subject of "Baby Blue" covers, there's this:

Yeah, that's Bruce Hornsby on accordion. And a nice example of what the much-maligned Vince Welnick could do when allowed to play something without a horrible synthy/MIDI keyboard sound (these were never his fault in the first place — they were chosen by outside forces in an attempt to modernise the Dead's sound in the post-Mydland 90's — and yet the abuse he got...poor Vince!)