He also closed the show with a rousing "Gloria," which served as a clever cover to bail out of the venue and get his limo on the road several minutes before the band wrapped up and the audience realized he had left the building. But otherwise, there was nary a hit to be found this evening.

But true fans, who know that Morrison likes to mine the depths of his amazingly prolific 30-plus album catalog, had to be transfixed by the man and the sound he managed to extract from a spectacularly tight ensemble featuring bass, guitar, drums, keyboards, flute, sax, trumpet, violin and two cellos.

While he was on a mission to showcase his critically acclaimed "Astral Weeks"--celebrating the 40th anniversary of its release--every note from the strains of the show's opening number, "Northern Muse (Solid Ground)," through the re-ordered sequence of material from that groundbreaking 1968 effort and into the encore were delivered with such cleverly crafted nuance that the entire set seemed like a musical gift from the heavens.

The sweet clarity of a young Van Morrison's tenor back in the late '60s and early '70s, like that bottle of fine wine, has also mellowed, taking on the still tasty, yet world-weary growl of a veteran bluesman. And his presence--with dark suit, huge mirrored aviator sunglasses and dark fedora offsetting his brilliant white acoustic guitar--only enhanced his eccentric posturing.

Occasionally, Morrison would back well off the microphone and sing to the band, or maybe to himself, and the musicians surrounding him would back off to almost a whisper so the audience could hear every throaty mumble of his jazzy scat. These interludes were amplified well in the vintage theater, where every tick of the drumstick on the high-hat, and every breathy draw of the bow across the cello's strings were clearly audible all the way to the balcony's last row.

Besides the re-ordered and invigorated treatment of the "Astral Weeks" material, Morrison proved to the crowd early on that this would be a night to remember, pulling out "Fair Play," from his 1974 project "Veedon Fleece," as he transitioned from grand piano to guitar. As he strummed, sometimes percussively, the band would crescendo and then fall back to a nearly indiscernible hum, opening up an envelope for their esteemed frontman to pick out a sweet, languishing solo. His treatment of "In The Garden," from the 1986 album "No Guru, No Method, No Teacher," was similarly structured, teetering between serene and urgent depending on the verse.

With the slight nod of his head, or the backward toss of his hand, he would bring various backing musicians momentarily into the spotlight before commanding attention back to center stage, where each verse seemed to build upon the last--both literally and musically--as instruments continued to layer upon one another until the final few moments, when everyone on stage was furiously synched.

The "Astral Weeks" portion of the show came with a cheesy announcement from some disembodied emcee off stage, as the band launched into the title track. Following up with "Beside You," which included beautiful Spanish guitar underpinning from Jay Berliner, Morrison continued leading the crowd through this litany of stories, stopping only once ahead of "Slim Slow Slider (I Start Breaking Down)," to tell the audience, "Any reference to any living person is fiction ...."

Morrison shed his guitar momentarily on "Sweet Thing" and grabbed a harmonica , then alternated between singing directly into the mic and singing through the distorted reeds of the harp. A jangling harpsichord drove the band down "Cyprus Avenue," and even the high notes of "Ballerina" failed to challenge Morrison's 64-year-old vocal chords.

Wrapping up this portion of the show, Morrison finally let the entire band bring on a joyful burst of sound at the end of "Madame George." Switching to a vintage Les Paul guitar, the artist briefly returned to his catalog for "And the Healing Has Begun" before shuffling off stage into the wings trailing a jazzy solo as the house erupted in a standing ovation.

Van Morrison continues his "Astral Weeks" tribute show with an Oct. 27 stop in Baltimore, before bouncing back to the MGM Grand casino at Foxwoods in Connecticut, and the final stop at New York's Madison Square garden Arena Oct. 28.