He's not called The Man for nothing and on Saturday night the Phil was in raptures as he and his peerless nine-piece backing band staged a full 90-minute masterclass of unmatchable musical versatility.
Looking less like Uncle Bulgaria these days, he cut a sleeker figure than last remembered Wombling on stage, blowing blues harp as the band cruised into Back On Top, no pompous bluster but merely a statement of fact on this kind of form.
One of Morrison's greatest assets is his understanding of various musical styles and the consequent ability to meld them into transforming the shape of songs from his formidable back catalogue.
This ensures that with Van Live you'll never, ever, get a perfunctory rolling out of the greatest hits; he's always tweaking away and changing the standards which make him, and not Rafa Benitez, the supreme Tinkerman.
So, despite this being the Liverpool Irish Festival, in this incarnation we had not so much the Celtic Come Into Parlour Van but the Mint Julep On The Back Porch Man as he put his philanderings with Country and Western to good use with stunning effect.
Fiddle and pedal steel guitar transformed classics such as Moondance into something altogether different.
Another of Morrison's great assets is the ability to control the momentum so that at some stage in the performance there comes a key point which makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand on end, or brings tears welling into the eyes.
