Van Morrison Tickets

The Living Legend Van Morrison will be performing at select dates this summer. Get your tickets now to hear all your favorites live. The Irish bluesman who created at least one of "the greatest albums ever made" with "Astral Weeks" and possibly two with "Moondance," will play with his ace nine-piece band, performing songs from all eras of his nearly five decade storied career. Van Morrison has so many music awards, so many inductions into various halls-of-fame, so many rapturous critical citations, so many honorary degrees and honorifics that trying to chronicle them all is a hopelessly daunting task. Fans of Morrison know that "Van the Man," as Robbie Robertson famously called him, is a concert experience very worth whatever it takes to get there.

A cursory exploration of his achievements starts with his writing one of the greatest rock 'n' roll songs of all time - "Gloria." You know the one, "G-L-O-R-I-A! Gloooooria!" Clearly, if he never accomplished anything else, his place in rock 'n' roll history would be assured. The three-chord stomper has been endlessly covered, most famously by Patti Smith on her debut album "Horses." Someone somewhere right now is blasting it in his/her garage as he/she learns to play guitar. Many critics have haughtily analyzed the simplicity and "glory" of this song over the years, but perhaps it was best said by the humorist Dave Barry, "If you drop a guitar down a flight of stairs, it'll play 'Gloria' on its way to the bottom." "Gloria" was written by Van when he was 18 years old and recorded by his garage rock band Them. It was released in 1964 as the B-side of the single "Baby Please Don't Go."

In 1968 Van Morrison, while just 23 years old, recorded what would be hailed as one of "the greatest albums ever made": Astral Weeks. It places second on Mojo Magazine's best albums list and #19 on Rolling Stone's list. It was recently voted the Greatest Irish Album of All Time, ahead of a slew of U2 albums. The album was a then-unprecedented mixture of folk, blues, jazz, and classical music. It received a rapturous critical reception. It was, however, ignored by radio and thus the record-buying public. It took 33 years to even go Gold, finally earning that distinction in 2001. His follow-up, 1970's "Moondance" was a bit more of a rocking affair, though still eclectic. This proved to be Van's commercial breakthrough as the album became a staple on the fledgling FM radio stations. The album sold well and peaked at #92 on the Billboard chart. It ranks #65 on Rolling Stone's list. Interestingly, the title track, long an FM staple, was not released as a single until 1977. Both "Astral Weeks" and "Moondance" are on Time Magazine's list of 100 Best Albums of All Time.

Van Morrison is a multiple Grammy Award winner, an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Irish Music Hall of Fame. He has received an Order of the British Empire award from the Queen and an Officier de l'Ordre des Artes et des Lettres from France. He will be performing at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Atlanta, Hampton Court Palace in London, Norwegian Wood 2010 in Norway and the Hop Farm Festival in Kent.