Saturday evening was the "Live At The Battery" free outdoor concert in Battery Park presented by American Express, in celebration of the Tribeca Film Festival.

The concert had a wonderful line-up of musicians; the Black Eyed Peas, Macy Gray, Steve Winwood and headlining was one of my all time favorites, Van Morrison. American Express also included a few guests to fill the space between acts.

The first act was a comedian?...no, a political activist?...possibly. Actually, I'm not quite sure who he was or what he said. I did hear a few references to Bush and Pataki, but mostly he just was shouting and cursing. I think he was a cursor...a professional cursor and an interesting guest to book, because their were a handful of kids in the area.

Chris Tucker, the comedian from Rush Hour, did some stand-up and mentioned his work with Bono & the Save the Children's Program in Africa, then Tucker introduced Bono.

Bono addressed the issues of ongoing poverty and disease in Africa and like always, did his best to bring awareness without preaching. Standing on the stage, looking as sexy as ever, he spoke about his love for NYC, for America and then mocked himself for being so corny. Bono held the stage for quite a while and was beginning to look bit uneasy as he was running out of things to say. As for me, I was enjoying looking at Bono on the enormous screen next to the stage and listening to his heartfelt brogue.

Bono introduced the legendary Van Morrison, who shined through his entire set. He looked great and sounded fabulous. The performers prior to Morrison were displayed on 50 foot screens and heard on speakers placed throughout the park. As for Morrison, all of the screens and speakers were off, except the speakers on the stage, bringing everyone closer and resuscitating the performer-audience energy. Morrison played a low-key set with less rock and more jazz/blues/swing, altering his songs which allowed you to only recognize most them by their lyrics. I loved it, it was wonderful, his brilliance came alive with a tender cozy sound.

An interesting part of the evening was how few people attended the concert. A free concert with Van Morrison and the place looked empty? I believe American Express allocated 6000 tickets to the concert, so I suppose it was simply not advertised.

Had Mark Rabinowitz not told me about it, I too, wouldn't have known. So, thanks Rabbi. You rock!