In Search Of The Philosophers Stone

A magical night. That seemed to be the verdict of virtually everyone present at the ceremony which marked Van Morrison s inaugural induction into the Hot Press Irish Music Hall Of Fame.
Bono, The Edge, Paul Brady, Luka Bloom, Gavin Friday, Simon Carmody, Donal Lunny, Brian Downey, Joe Dolan, Mary Coughlan, Mary Stokes, Paddy Moloney, Shane Lynch of Boyzone and members of Clannad were among the musicians who took the opportunity to pay homage. So too did industry figures like Denis Desmond, Paul McGuinness, Louis Walsh, John McColgan, Tony Burke of the Irish Music Hall of Fame, David Heffernan of Daniel Productions and Dreamchaser duo Ned O Hanlon and Maurice Linnane. Other guests included John Kelly, Lorraine Keane, Neil Jordan and Brenda Rawn, John Boorman, Caroline Downey, John Rocha, Garech deBruin, BP Fallon, Steve Collins, Bob Geldof Snr, Dave Fanning, Gerry and Morah Ryan, Gay Byrne and Kathleen Watkins, Pat Faulkner of Riverdance, Desmond Guinness, Sarah Owens, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mary Frehill, Wonderland s Eamonn McCann, Guggi, Joe Duffy, Willie O Reilly of Today FM, Lindsay Holmes, Paul Keogh, Pat Savage of OJ Kilkenny s London office, Brian Molloy, Eamon Carr, Justin Greene and Riobaird MacGorain of Gael Linn and lots more, rest assured!
Brendan Kennelly, poet and Professor of English at Trinity College acted as host for the evening. His introductory speech was warm, humorous and eloquent, ending with a rendering of a poem he d chosen by another Belfast man, Louis MacNeice.
An impressive video, created for the occasion by Daniel Productions, followed, blending archive footage with filmed tributes from artists of the calibre of Bob Dylan, Sting and John Lee Hooker.
It was then the turn of Bob Geldof, who handled the official induction. He was articulate and impassioned, blending good humour and seriousness to perfect effect (see below for full transcript). There was no doubting Geldof s sincerity as he spoke personally about the importance and impact of Van s music. His speech went down a storm.
With that it was on with the show. Van took the stage to a standing ovation, briefly posed for a photocall with the man he subsequently referred to as Sir Bob , and then launched into his set.
Accompanied by the Dave Gold Big Band, as well as Richie Buckley on sax and Geraint Watkins on keyboards among others, he performed brilliantly for all of his 45 minutes onstage, his material taken predominantly from his most recent album, Back On Top. Van s talent has always shone most brightly in the live arena, and this was borne out on the night as he invested songs like Back on Top and The Philosopher s Stone with fresh power and emotion. The night that was in it added resonance to the I was born on a back street lyric of the latter, replete on this occasion with fingers jabbing the air.
On balance, however, the musical highpoint was probably an epic version of My Lagan Love , with the tin whistle of special guest Paddy Moloney providing a melliflous counterpoint to Van s urgent harmonica and magnificent vocal.
Morrison also made a short but memorable speech that included references to Ruby Murray, Delia Murphy and Dickie Rock, and which paid particular tribute to U2 manager, Paul McGuinness. Then it was into the home stretch before he handed the stage back over to the Dave Gold Big Band, who concluded the night with a further selection of Van classics.
Let s just say that the party went on into the wee small hours . . .
VAN MORRISON is the most important musical artist Ireland has ever produced and one of its greatest artists in any field in the last 50 years.
His great achievement has been to produce a body of work that is so seamlessly pure a recent review could only say same old magnificent thing .
It s true not one of us other Irish players have come even vaguely close to this artistic achievement.
It is difficult to sum up or analyse exactly what that achievement is. Van certainly cannot nor does he want to. Nor typically, does he want anybody else to. But as Rolling Stone has written his influence among other singer/songwriters is unrivalled by any living artist, besides that other prickly legend Bob Dylan.
His musical influences were common enough for his time and they had a resonance for thousands of his contemporaries. But it was uniquely Van who, although giving hints of the musical distillation that was occurring somewhere in his soul, produced within one 48-hour period one of the true and rare seminal works of contemporary music in Astral Weeks.
Somehow he had blended, instinctively and seamlessly, everything he knew musically and in experience with an Irish romantic mysticism, into a meandering and exquisitely impressionistic piece of music that, like so much of what he has written, endures to this moment.
He is an extraordinary singer. No other person sounds like him. He is uniquely recognisable and he uses that beautiful thing to attempt to explore and examine areas and depths few have charted successfully.
It is like some long journey for meaning. He is often specific in location and mood but the themes are universal and nearly always have a profound and troubled spiritual dimension. It seems to be music from another place that takes you somewhere else.
The range of his musical influences transcends any limited sense of what contemporary music is. It s not just R&B or jazz or soul or rock and roll or Celtic, or whatever. But a blend of those borders into a unique notion of what is true.
He becomes famously irritated by any questioning by those lesser mortals who can t understand how this happens. It s something I do .
But once I pushed him about this aching sense of loss, confusion, mystery, and in exasperation and in order to shut me up he blurted Look . . . it s in the blood.
And he s the only one with that blood.
He has written remarkable songs. Ones that seem, the first time you hear them, to have always existed.
They still play Gloria . It s kind of song number one, isn t it? Every start-up band has to learn it.
How many murdered Moondances have you heard in how many late night lounges?
Was Have I Told You Lately really not just some re-worked love song?
But it is the body of work, in that utterly recognisable voice, that has had such a huge impact on our consciousness outside of the enormous influence on other musicians.
From an Irish perspective, the impact of Morrison is inspirational.
To hear a work so epic, so expansive, so unclassifiable, so out of place and time, as Astral Weeks, and recognise in it Belfast that dour, grim city of the 60s was a shock to us. To hear Irish placenames turned into rhymes of magic like Route 66 , and all those Delta towns, was truly weird.
Philip Lynott was electrified. This sense of location, but being dislocated, of being here but not belonging, sent him off on his own quest.
I simply try to rip him off how do you write a street epic about the place you live and those around you? I imitated the sound and tried to copy the style. I got a hit or two but the master was in another area of operation altogether high art.
Bono, Siniad, Shane et al keep looking so does Van. It has become the sine qua non of Irish music, but there is only one who has taken us on such a brilliantly beautiful journey. For his peace of soul you hope he ll get there, but for our sakes, I hope the ride never ends.
He genuinely is great.
It is apt that he should be the first inductee into the Irish Musicl Hall of Fame. n