There is a website called setlist.fm which allows its users to vicariously attend pretty much any concert. Search the name of an artist and a comprehensive history of their live performances will appear, spanning decades long gone to the hour just past.
Setlist.fm is both a useful resource and a massive spoiler-fest; the music equivalent of skipping to the last page of a book. Those planning to see a band can discover in advance most of the songs they are likely to hear. Those whose interest starts waning mid-gig can check to see how many songs are left. Those who stayed at home can soothe themselves with the thought that the artist failed to play all, or indeed any, of their favourite tracks.
Had I not physically attended Van Morrison’s concert at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall on 30 March, had I instead glanced only at the raw data via setlist.fm, I would have been pleased to note a pivot away from the glut of skiffle and early rock’n’roll covers Morrison has tended to favour in recent times. Even so, I would not have been hugely excited by the choice of material. Aside from a closing ‘Gloria’ – which, according to the website, Morrison has performed 1,004 times in his solo career, the first occasion being at the Café De Hip in Deventer, Holland, on 9 March 1967 – he played not a single song of his own from the 1960s and 1970s. Instead, the focus fell on his 1980s and early 1990s catalogue: ‘Northern Muse (Solid Ground)’, ‘Did Ye Get Healed?’, ‘Someone Like You’, ‘Have I Told You Lately?’, ‘Real, Real Gone’, ‘Enlightenment’, ‘Days Like This’.
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