van morrison is my football team

I have this thing about Van Morrison. People who don't share my enthusiasm find this inexplicable. He's grumpy, they say. He ignores the audience, shouts at his band, is wildly unpredictable and prone to bizarre musical excursions. And they're right, of course. But here's the thing.

When I was a teenager, I used to listen to Le Pop Club on France Inter every night. The DJ, Jose Artur, used to play all sorts of things that you couldn't hear on the BBC. And that was where I heard 'Sweet Thing' when Astral Weeks came out in 1968. And that was it. I was hooked. 

As a fan, I've had my ups and downs over the years. I've gone to concerts that were dreadful, concerts that were very, very short, concerts with no encores. Concerts where he played everything at twice the speed you were expecting and nothing that the audience wanted to hear. But I've also been to concerts that were sublime. The Rainbow, 1973, was the best concert I have ever been to in my life. It set a benchmark against which all others have been found wanting.

So when I tell people that I'm off to the Royal Albert Hall in two weeks to see him again, they say 'again?'. And I say yes. This time it might be a corker. It might make me cry like last year when I went to see him play the whole of Astral Weeks and it was like being back in 1968 and hearing it for the first time.

And I travel optimistically because that's what fans do. We turn up week after week, year after year. And sometimes our team loses or scores an own goal. But sometimes they hit a winning streak, or get promoted, or win the FA Cup. And when that happens, there's no better feeling. And that's why I'll be there, come rain or shine. Because Van Morrison is my football team.

"Well, it's a marvellous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
Neath the cover of October skies....."

Van Morrison, Moondance