Playing to a picnicking crowd in Hampstead's stately surrounds, Van Morrison could be expected to go on autopilot.

Yet the clipped funky intro sounded by long-time guitar accomplice John Platania on the opener Domino suggested something more exciting in store.

The volume was often too low for tender intimacies to take hold and badly organised seating caused bizarre showdowns between members of the crowd and security staff but on stage The Man - with dark glasses, pork pie hat and VM logo strategically placed on the mike stand like a prizefighter's belt buckle - was clearly working hard to refresh seldom-heard parts of his illustrious canon.

After a superlative St Dominic's Preview, rearranged to highlight the 10-piece band's keening violin and mandolin, Morrison strapped on a ukulele.

"Time for some of George Formby's greatest hits," he waggishly announced. Wigan's finest remained untroubled, although latest album title track Keep It Simple was ample compensation.

The big pay off came with Ballerina and The Way Young Lovers Do, 40-years-young treats from his classic debut solo album Astral Weeks.

At 61, Morrison has inevitably lost the high register range of yesteryear but his artistry is consummate enough for that not to matter.

Largely brass-free, the band repeatedly treated old warhorses to deft rearrangements. Platania was let off the leash for a thunderous Wavelength and, as night descended, the post-coital moonlight drive on In The Afternoon recalled another, long-departed Morrison - Jim.

By the time a claw hammer banjo-driven Bright Side Of The Road arrived, audience members swarmed into a fenced off enclosure and the police judiciously stepped aside.

The "sha la la las" on Brown Eyed Girl led to a careering and emphatic Gloria - a predictable yet pleasurepacked climax.

Simple, but superb.