GUEST SPOT # 36 - Van Morrison - 'Domino'

It's Saturday and it's Guest Spot day....If you'd like to do a guest spot for us then please let us know. Who knows, you could start a domino effect! (hopefully)

This week we have the mighty Singing Bear, music aficionado from the Grownupbackwards blog and a story about a 'close encounter of the Van kind'. 

'Crossing The Road With Van Morrison'

The man at his peak singing 'Domino'

Back in the early to mid 90's I was living in Bath and was aware that Van Morrison had a home there, too. It must be said, Van's house was somewhat more opulent than ours! You would, from time to time, hear of the odd Van sighting but, just like his reputation, he was pretty elusive. A colleague of mine did once attend a party where Van happened to show up (I've no idea why, how or where) and she told me that on being asked to sing a song Van picked up a guitar, turned his back on everyone and mumbled something vague into the corner of the room before exiting. Anyway, I expect you're wondering about my own 'Van Moment'. At this time, I was a massive fan of Van The Man (I still love his early stuff now but my interest has waned a little, I'll admit) and I often wondered what I'd say to him if we had a chance encounter. As you probably know, he's a notoriously miserable git, so not easily approachable. One day, I was a little early for work, which was a just a few streets from Mr. Morrison's residence, and I decided to nip down to the local record shop to while away a few minutes before the daily grind. Just as I approached the pedestrian crossing at the junction of The Paragon and Broad Street (anyone know Bath?) I saw a dumpy little baldy guy in denim and brown cowboy-ish boots waiting for the green man to allow us to cross. It was just me and him with no one else in sight. I sidled up close, thinking 'What shall I say? What shall I say?' In ultra quick time I considered: 'Hello Mr. Morrison, I'm a huge fan and just want to say thanks for the music', which was swiftly rejected for 'Hi Van, how're you doing? Nice day!', again rejected for just a knowing nod and a thumbs up in the hope that I'd get a smile and a 'hi' in return. The seconds ticked by as we stood side by side on the kerb, then the lights changed, it was time to cross, my mind got stuck in reverse and we both silently crossed the road together before Van disappeared into a newsagents and I just knew it would be too creepy to follow him in. All was lost., which was probably a good thing because I'm pretty sure he would have just told me to piss off.

Who are you calling dumpy, pal!?

I did see him around town a couple more times before we left Bath for the Welsh valleys; once I even sat in the same cafe as him, peeping over my copy of MOJO to see what kind of beverage a musical legend likes to partake of but I gave up on any attempt at communication. They say you should never meet your heroes but it might have been funny to be told to eff-off by the great VM.


If anybody else has had a 'close encounter' with a musician or group then let us know, we can feature it as a guest spot. Read some more here...... Close Encounters


Check out more from Singing Bear here....
or even more Guest Spots.......