(click on cover image for larger version)

A Van-L CD-R Tree Production
Reno Hilton Theatre
Reno, Nevada, January 21-22, 2000

January 21, 2000
CD 1

1. Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart (instrumental) (5:00)
2. Did Ye Get Healed? (4:19)
3. Back On Top (4:15)
4. Moondance (6:34)
5. In The Midnight (5:22)
6. That's Life (4:37)
7. Good Morning Blues (4:03)
8. Sloop John B (3:16)
9. Frankie and Johnny (5:14)
10. Vanlose Stairway (6:26)
11. Precious Time (3:27)
12. When The Leaves Come Falling Down (6:34)
13. Going Down Geneva (5:21)
    Total time: (64:32)

CD 2

1. It's All In The Game (8:41)
2. Solid Ground / No Prima Donna / Ball and Chain / Auld Lang Syne (5:19)
3. Georgia (5:11)
4. Philosopher's Stone (11:11)
5. 18 Boppin' the Blues / Shake Rattle and Roll (5:13)
6. That'll Be The Day (2:21)
7. What'd I Say (2:48)
8. Help Me / Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (10:31)
9. See Me Through / Thank You Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin (8:41)
   Total time: (59:59)

January 22, 1999
CD 3

1. My Happy Day (Geraint Watkins) (2:45)
2. Nothin's Gonna Work Out Fine (2:34)
3. These Dreams Of You / Don't Worry About Tomorrow (3:41)
4. I Believe To My Soul (3:48)
5. Back On Top (4:08)
6. When The Leaves Come Falling Down (5:02)
7. In The Afternoon / Feel My Leg / Sex Machine (6:23)
8. Midnight Special (2:40)
9. Sloop John B (3:40)
10. Muleskinner Blues (3:22)
11. It's All In The Game (7:45)
12. Precious Time (3:19)
13. Georgia (5:16)
14. Satisfied / Organ Grinder Jam (4:42)
15. Vanlose Stairway (5:19)
    Total time: (64:30)

CD 4

1. Moondance (5:17)
2. The Healing Game (6:07)
3. Help Me / Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (8:02)
   Total time: (19:26)

A review of the show from the January 23, 2000 Reno Gazette-Journal:
Van Morrison skips the oldies
By Mark Robison
When seeing a legend in a casino, there are certain expectations that normally hold true. You expect the hits -- or at least most of them -- and you expect them to be performed much like the originals. Not with Van Morrison.

The Irish singer played two sold-out shows this weekend in the Reno Hilton's 2,000-seat theater. And at least on Friday night, he performed exactly one of his hits: "Moondance." It was done as a jazz number with band solos and Morrison off stage for most of it.

If you went to hear "Brown-Eyed Girl," you might've been disappointed. At one point, Morrison stopped a song when an audience member shouted a request for "Into The Mystic" and said, "Let me explain something. That was then, now I'm trying to move ahead. [That song] was fine for the '70s but this is 2000." Again, Morrison is simply not the typical casino act who lives and dies on trotting out moldie oldies night after night.

Instead Morrison is something better. It sounds a bit like an insult, but he's an artist more than an entertainer, which has helped him to continue to make meaningful albums for so many years. He performs for himself. He performs what makes himself happy, not his audience. And if you were willing to go along for the ride Friday night, he was brilliant.

There were basically three sections in his two-hour set. In one portion, he explored his 1999 album "Back On Top." It's not one of his best, but you would've thought it was a classic from the way he worked out the band on such tracks as the sweet pop song "Precious Time" and the sprawling melancholy ballad of "When the Leaves Come Falling Down."

In another portion, he brought out the king of skiffle Lonnie Donegan to test some tracks from his new album, due out Tuesday, called "The Skiffle Sessions -- Live in Belfast." Skiffle was the precursor to the British Invasion sound, basically jug band rock 'n' roll with guitars and washboard rhythms.

On the three tracks with Donegan, Morrison smiled and laughed and had a grand time turning Donegan loose on the crowd. For his part, Donegan tore up the joint, jamming on his guitar and wailing with more fire than he probably delivered as a teenager, especially on the chestnuts "Frankie and Johnny" and "Sloop John B."

Morrison's third section ws devoted to choice covers. These included such wide-ranging tracks as Carl Perkins' raveup "Boppin' the Blues"; "That's Life," a soul-shouter made famous by Wayne Newton and the R&B favorite "Georgia on My Mind." Morrison brought back opening-act Charlie Gracie, a Philadelphia rock 'n' roller from the '50s, and mad the unusual move of having Gracie redo two tracks from his set, only with more verve: "What'd I Say" and "Shake, Rattle & Roll."

Morrison did play a few oldies from his own repertoire. What passed for hits were "Northern Muse" and "Vanlose Stairway."

But, again, hits weren't the point. Morrison was getting into the music, the give and take between band members, forcing them to follow his every whim, ordering impromptu solos and cutting others short. The arrangements had the inventiveness and challenge of jazz rather than pop. And he made jokes, even doing imitations of Andy Kaufmann and Louis Prima.

One of Morrison's best traits is how every song sounds like a show closer. They build and build with scatting vocals and band introductions and spoken-word bridges and big-jam finishes, clocking in more than eight minutes long. You get to your feet to applaud him off the stage, only to find the next song starting. Probably the last seven numbers all got standing ovations because they just seemed like Morrison was giving his last. That kind of pacing may seem strange, but over the course of the night, it was enthralling.

Had I known Morrison was going to be as good as he was, I would've bought tickets for Saturday night's show -- and at $67 a ticket, that's high praise, indeed.

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