Is seeing a Van Morrison concert worth $300 a ticket.  How about $125 a ticket?  That was the question a few weeks ago.

So much was right about this show.  It’s Van Morrison performing Astral Weeks (one of my 5 favorite albums of all time) in its entirety.  It’s at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley.  Outside of the Fillmore, the Greek is the best venue to see a show in the Bay Area.  Its a bowl, the stage sits at the bottom and almost all the seats outside the pit area look downward to the stage. Great, great place.  I’ve seen The Pixies, Arcade Fire, Wilco, the Beastie Boys there.  All memorable, memorable times.  Its one of those "man, I’m so glad I live around here" kind of places.  Its also gotten a lot better the last few years.  You used to have buy beers in the beer garden and stay in there to drink them.  No more.  Made a huge difference.  Not that I drink a lot of beer or anything.

Everything about this show was perfect until I found out about the price.  Last time my wife and I shelled out $300 on a pair of tickets was for The Police, and that ended up being a mistake. 

I mean we’re in a recession and this guy wants to charge three figures a ticket?  What a jerk.  So I started calling some friends the day before tickets went on sale morning and told them the about my dilemma.  Needed some 3rd party input. Pretty much the universal response touched upon the following: "Dude, Its Astral Weeks"  One of the greatest albums ever made.  And he doesn’t perform those songs very often, so it will sound fresh. It would be like Pink Floyd reuniting to play Dark Side of the Moon. Or the Beatles returning from the grave to run thru Abbey Road. If you had a chance to see Miles Davis play all of Kind of Blue, you’d have to do it.  Right?

Did more digging and found that its actually a two set show.  So its more than just Astral Weeks.  Here’s an example.  In the end, we made the decision to go.  Even managed to motivate a few friends to join Keturah and myself. 

Can’t friggin’ wait to venture into the slipstream.