By 
My social battery is constantly at zero per-cent these days, but I’ve managed to drag myself to one or two outings in the past couple of weeks. I was enjoying a night in last Wednesday with the fire lit, when I got a half-expected last minute invite to the Bob Dylan concert in Belfast. I made the journey to the Waterfront Hall in time to meet some pals before entering the venue. Nice seats they gave us, and I was happy to find myself sitting beside some other friends who I hadn’t seen in a while. I looked down during the show, and could almost swear I saw Bono… but maybe it was a lookalike, so we named him Nono. The gig was excellent of course, the band were on fine form and Bob even addressed the crowd. He seemed to be in good spirits.
Just the day before I decided to drive to the coast with no real purpose. I called my record collecting buddy, Fred, who said he had a box of blues books and cds to give me, so I headed for his gaff. He took me to his music library which in itself is a treasure trove. Records from wall to wall, mostly blues, this guy has been collecting his entire life. He packed my car with as much as he could fit in, and we started talking about the upcoming Bob gig and when talk eventually turned to Van Morrison, we wondered would he be attending the show (old pals, on the second night of the two concerts, Bob closed the show with a cover of Van’s ‘Goin down to Bangor’).
After leaving Fred’s, I continued on up the road to drop off some Spin soundtracks into a record store, when I started to get peckish, so I stopped off in a cafe for a coffee and a bite to eat. When I walked in, who was sitting there having his brunch but Van The Man himself. I didn’t approach, I know better than to interrupt a man while he’s eating. I took a window seat and looked out at the sea. I wondered what I was doing there at this moment in time. Everything was normal. Except it felt like a dreamlike scenario, as just a few feet from me was the man who wrote Astral Weeks. I sat and wondered about this, in a daydream. When I snapped out of it, I looked around.. the seat was empty, Van was gone. Like he was never there. Maybe he wasn’t.
Tonight I’ll attend another gig, this time to see Muireann Bradley. We’ve never met, but I play double bass on her newest record. I have a spare seat so I’ll take Owen Colgan, who happens to be in town filming. A good companion, one of the few people I feel comfortable enough to be in their company and we don’t have to fill the empty silence with useless chit chat.
And then I fly to Liverpool for a gig, opening for Babyshambles, a gig I tried to talk them out of getting me for. But now it seems like an appropriate full circle thing to. I’m almost looking forward to it. Liverpool, my old home. I’ll play some songs I wrote there, and see some friends I used to spend every day with. I’ll go to John Lennon’s favourite bar, and drink to old times. And like a ritual, I’ll slumber solidly in the Adelphi, my favourite haunted hotel.
