IN MY relatively limited experience of six or seven Morrison gigs, they range from the sublime (with Brian Kennedy at the Lighthouse) to the ridiculous (people demanding their money back at the infamous 1995 BIC show), but are rarely middling.

This one didn't start well with a poor, jazzy, different version of Brown Eyed Girl and the mainman, judging by the numbers of tissues he was getting through, seemingly suffering from a cold.

And there were no backing singers to ease progress.

The low-key start continued for a couple of songs with Morrison content to offer his seven-piece, black-suited band endless solos as he growled his lyrics.

He even deferred to the keyboard-playing MD on occasion. Now, that was surprising.

Then it all changed; his diction improved, he got into the groove and the excellent band really began to swing.

We moved through Crazy Love, the always good In The Garden and on to Moondance.

The storming, extended versions of the New Orleans jazz and Chicago blues numbers lifted the evening beyond expectations.

Morrison was mostly playing sax with the occasional burst of mouth harp, barely touching his guitar Then we came, somewhat unexpectedly given the unfamiliar nature of some material (to me) to Gloria.

It rose slowly from humble beginnings to an incredible crescendo, at which point Morrison asked us to give it up for the band and then disappeared.

The soulful, still not name-checked, band played on and the groove grew and grew to a rousing finale. Then they stopped, the house lights came on abruptly while they were still on stage, indicating it was time we went home.

No reappearance by George Ivan, no encore - just 15 songs in exactly 90 minutes, thank you very much.