Fan set for Van the Man birthday bash

/HUGE MORRISON FAN: Max Croskery will be taking in Van Morrison concerts in Northern Ireland. PHOTO/ANDREW BONALLACK

A devout Masterton fan of Northern Irish troubadour Van Morrison leaves this weekend for the star's hometown to help him celebrate his 70th birthday.

Electrician Max Croskery, himself of Irish stock, said he will take in several Morrison performances during his upcoming stay in Northern Ireland, including a couple of birthday concerts Van the Man is putting on in Belfast's Cyprus Ave, a street near where he was raised, which gave its name to a track included on his critically-acclaimed 1968 album Astral Weeks.

"The first time I discovered Morrison was something special was when I heard his album Into the Music in 1985. It sparked something but I never really took it any further," he said.

"Then one summer in the late 90s I was in Whakatane with my family and a record store had bargain CDs on a table out front. There was one there called Astral Weeks. It just blew my mind and I started collecting his albums and reading books about him, researching him. I was hooked."

In 2003, the father-of-two travelled with his family to Britain "when the opportunity came up to see him live" at a concert in York. He had also started gathering Morrison's studio works, most of which he now owns including Duets: Re-Working The Catalogue album released in March.

Mr Croskery also since had been to nine Morrison concerts including three in Belfast, two in San Francisco, once in Edinburgh and Stuttgart, and last year at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

Morrison's upcoming birthday performance will headline at the EastSide Arts Festival in Belfast and has been touted as "... a unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience, not to be missed. Quite simply, you will want to say you were here".

Mr Croskery will "descend on Ireland" with hundreds of other fans he has met online through forums and webpages devoted to Morrison. He will also attend a dinner ahead of the Cyprus Avenue concert along with 200 other fans at which Morrison tribute band Celtic Soul will play.

As well, he will go to Morrison concerts on August 22 and 23 at the Slieve Donard hotel in Newcastle, NI, and plans to "check out some family roots as well, around County Down and Belfast while I'm over there".

Mr Croskery said his favourite Morrison song was Independence Day from the St Dominic's Preview album and he was enamoured of him as an artist because of his lyrics and spiritual philosophies in his music.

"His songs take you on the journey he went on exploring life. He name checks a lot of books, blues artists, philosophers; and I've looked at some of the people and ideas he sings about. He went out and met his idols, like John Lee Hooker and Ray Charles, who he called the high priest.

"I guess I'd like to meet him but with that, it's just a matter of luck. I know a few people who have met him and he's pretty gracious these days, apparently, even though he has quite a curmudgeonly reputation."