Andy and I had a beer in one of those horrible big brewery pubs which fittingly was full of Austin Power man of mystery lookalikes tonight, complete with lurid green or yellow suits, daft wigs and Joe 90 specs without any glass in them. Must be a convention on somewhere . . .

Then we wandered down to the sold out theatre in time for the support act Chris Farlowe and his band. Farlowe is a contemporary of Van Morrisons who played the same kind of circuits as Them in the sixties as Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds. Farlowe was also at one time lead vocalist for Collosseum who were a progressive rock band on Vertigo in the late sixties.

Vocalist Chris Farlowe is the rabble rousing r'n'b beat merchant. Tonight he was on prime form. Lots of James Brown inspired soul and rhythm and blues. Good funky rocking band too. Lots of Hammond organ, bluesy guitar workouts and a couple of big ladies on backing vocals whose voices really carried over the music. He did all the stuff he's well known for, Handbags and Gladrags and his 1966 hit version of the Stones Out of Time.

I had not seen Van Morrison since I went with Andy to Portsmouth which must be a good three or four years ago. That was when Pee Wee Ellis was in the band. Hearing Ellis play saxophone motif's against Morrison's vocal on Tupelo Honey at Portsmouth will live with me for a long time. That night Morrison opened with Perfect Fit and Andy, ever the wag, leaned over and said to me 'that's more than can be said for his suit.'

Andy's now a subscriber to the Wavelength fanzine and has seen Morrison every year for the past eight years. He tells me Pee Wee Ellis has decided he didn't want all the hassle of touring and now lives in Bradford in the North of England. He's a long ways from his native Harlem (like the great blues pianist Champion Jack Dupree who ended up in Leeds I think). Pee Wee Ellis has been helping out local schools with music classes and performances. Such a great thing to pass on his superb artistry to children.

After the break Van Morrison's band came on and settled themselves down with a couple of numbers then the man in the black hat wandered on stage to bucketloads of applause. Performing for Morrison is pretty much to how he feels on any given night as to how long the performance will be. Tonight he was right up for it and the whole show just fell into place and we got two solid hours of class.

Having not seen him for so long I don't know half the songs but in a sense it was more than songs tonight, it was just one long seamless performance that a great actor might have made. Morrison coaxed the soul out of his full bloodied Irish voice. He scat sang against the drummer's top cymbal, he grunted and growled in response to the saxophones and he sang those long luscious lines against the electric piano and organ.

I've always considered Morrison as one artist fit to carry Sinatra's torch because of the way he uses his voice to do more than just sing words on paper but gives a real emotional performance.

It was the first time in the many times I've seen Van Morrison play since the Caledonia Soul Orchestra demolished my head in Bristol in 1973, it was the first time I'd ever seen Van Morrison actually say anything out to the audience. It came as kind of interspersed words and phrases in songs but speak he did.

It was all rather like imagining you were stood drinking with Dylan Thomas in Brown's Hotel as Van Morrison shot off lines about Chet Baker, English footballing legend Stanley Matthews and English jockey Lester Piggott.

These phrases were like brush strokes to the canvas which the band painted under and over and around the vocals. The stage was awash with subtle colours, delicate chords and the kind of music that really defies description. But I'll try . . .

There was an organ player, a pianist, two guitarists, bass, drums and saxophone player and trumpet player. They played right up to a scream and down to a whisper and I gasped more than once at the artistry.

It was Billy Higgins, Ornette Coleman's drummer who said that 'a drum is a woman'. Morrison's drummer reminded me of that quote. He just played off the cymbals and snare so softly to start off with but he had pace and it lifted the music. The whole band had a grace of ballet dancers about them. The band vocals were gorgeous.

When it came to take it up a notch they just went for it. The drummer hardly broke sweat but he just whelped the snares and the bass drum and the heat went right to the back of my shirt.

Van Morrison had Chris Farlowe come out and join him at the end. Farlowe has all the persona of a bloke in the fight game. He's big but light on his feet and never still and continually jabbing the air with his open hands in time to either the drummer or the guitarist's chords. Hearing Van Morrison and him trade choruses and lines was an absolute joy tonight.

Morrison announced that they will be going out as 'MFB' which is Morrison, Farlowe and Burden (Eric Burden of the Animals (San Franciscan Nights, my favourite all time single . . .).

The show ended with one of those kind of workouts that BB King and Bobby Blue Bland do, improvised lines being thrown back and forth and Van Morrison clearly enjoying having Farlowe throw him off balance with unexpected responses. Like Morrison to Farlowe: 'Are you going to be up at three?' Farlowe's response 'Yeah MFB . . .'

They steamed it up, they left the stage after what seemed like one long encore. Father Christmas came out and threw what looked like small presents or sweets into the audience from a big white bag. Nice touch.

Andy and I went for a beer in one of those horrible pubs again where the music suddenly got better with Don't You Love Her Madly by the Doors (love that song) and then took the train home.