I saw him last Thursday in MNPLS.
It had all the potential to be a mind-bending show but I felt it was pretty flat and, according to some reviews of the show in the local papers, I'm not alone.
The Venue: Northrup Auditorium, UNiversity of Minnesota campus, 100+ year old building, seats <4800.
The Stage: Black, black backdrop, minimal lighting
The Band: 5 guys in black suits arranged in an arc, from left to right: Sax, Trumpet, Bass, Drums, Guitar, Keyboard. Van in the middle.
The Pre-Show: First a lame, shoe-gazing, guy-with-a-guitar-and-no-memorable-hooks comes out and sings five songs to a half-empty house. He said his name at the beginning of the set and at the end told us we could buy his CD at local stores. Pity I don't know his name - I'd hate to buy it by mistake.
The Show Proper: The band comes out, sans Van, and starts this swingin little vamp. It's a jazzy lounge-type sound that is carried throughout the entire show - no matter which song is played. They groove for a while, all taking solos (except the Guitarist who was the victim of an unplugged cord that wasn't fixed until the middle of the third song) then Van strolls out in a gray suit, hat and sunglasses. He takes a sax solo and the song morphs into "Have I Told You Lately" in the same swing beat. This is pretty much the formula for the next 60 minutes. He played a few things from the latest album (which is good) and songs from other recent albums. Some of the old songs didn't quite work with the swing tempo - notably "Into The Mystic" and "Cleaning Windows" (which you would think would work well played that way but it didn't). While the obligatory sax solos were going he'd turn his back to the audience, drink from a cup that was constantly being replenished by roadies, and shuffle through a stack of papers which I think were sheet music as both horn players had sheet music in front of them as well. Only twice did he step out vocally and do some of that Van-Stuttering-Talk-Singing thing. His voice was excellent by the way, I felt it the most powerful instrument on stage.
The last 20 minutes or so was a brief, souless run-through of all the favorites ("Brown-Eyed Girl", "Gloria", etc..). After the sax solo in "Gloria" he pointed at the horn section and told us their names and walked off the stage taking his mic with him. The band wrapped up the song and left the stage with their instruments.
AND THEN THE HOUSE LIGHTS WENT UP!!
NO ENCORE!!
This after a night of turning his back on us, not talking to us, not even introducing his band. The mood of the audience was one of confusion mixed with disbelief. It was eery walking out of there that night.
a word about The Production: Ametureish. Beside the gaff with the guitarist's cord, there were several miscues at the sound board that caused loss of sound at the beginning of a solo or extreme volume that was quickly turned down. Very poor performance considering this was the third night of a three-night run that started in Chicago two nights before. The lighting guy must've been smoking out of the same pipe as the sound guy as he briefly stage into total darkness in the middle of one song - during a Van sax solo no less!
I'm not nearly as big a Van fan as my wife and her family so I didn't have as high of expectations for the show - I just wanted to see him. The rest in my party were either pissed off totally ($100 seats) or blissfully satisfied.
The Moral: Go in with low expectations and you won't be disappointed.
ok,
erix
