Van Morrison Disappoints, Jaymay Saves

Bee bop ba-wa doo... no one cares you can scat, Van Morrison. Also, no one cares that you can play the tenor sax OR that you're band is bluesy enough to take turns soloing for each and every song. It's safe to say that Van the Man was a little disappointing to me. Number one, he played a really short set. Number two, he didn't balance artistic freedom with crowd-pleasers. I could forgive him if he omitted Brown-Eyed Girl. But I can't forgive him for leaving out every song on Astral Weeks and every song, besides the title song, from Moondance. I don't know what the hell he played, but from that concert, the only thing that I can really say is that I saw Van Morrison live. One highlight was Van walking off-stage and dropping the microphone to the ground with a huge THUMP. Then he returned and walked off about three more times in a bizarre showing that confirms that he's a crazy, crazy man.

Alright, that's a bit of a harsh review, but I'm sticking to it. In happier music news, I ventured to Dingwalls in Camden Town tonight to catch Jaymay opening for Teddy Thompson, the son of
famed guitarist/folk singer Richard Thompson. I bought a ticket to it very last minute and couldn't have been happier with my choice. The venue was very State Theater in Falls Church, VA meets 9:30 Club in DC, a bit of seating with the nicer atmosphere of the 9:30 Club. It was also my first ever concert alone, because convincing someone else to go to this with me was a battle I didn't want to fight. Going alone was actually a good experience. The last time I was in Camden Town, I was a bit overwhelmed by the Goth/Punk atmosphere. I think the piercing/tattoo studio to human ratio is staggeringly high there. Tonight, they were closed down for the night and I felt less out of place than I did during the day. Anyways, the first guy that came on had a crazy Glasgow accent. Insane. He was really good, though the crowd wasn't overly impressed. Then Jaymay came on and no one cared until she started singing. She did a really solid six song set and during Teddy Thompson, she came out to sell her cds. I could tell she's just really into the music because when teenage kids came up to her to buy her cd and it looked they didn't have enough money, she told them she'd take whatever. Made me happy to see it. Sigh.


Lastly, I've been rock climbing again and I'm crap... again. But to motivate myself, I have booked tickets to the Easter Break rock climbing trip to Sardinia. Maybe this will be me in 3 months?