~snipped from telegraph.co.uk~

The raw passion of Reverend Green
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 02/07/2007

Helen Brown reviews Al Green at Royal Albert Hall

No major pop concert seems to pass off these days without, in the lull between songs, some besotted audience member bawling "I love you!" at the singer.

James Taylor probably had the most politely appropriate comeback when he replied: "Thanks. I love you too. I think it helps that we don't know each other though."

At an Al Green concert, the frequent, mutual declarations of love between audience and star have a hysterical zeal I've never seen before.

In fact, this night with the R&B star-cum-ordained pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle of Memphis had the surreal air of an evangelical meeting. Middle-aged women rushed, flushed, down the aisles at regular intervals to clutch at the sweating 61-year-old, and he laid his hands on theirs, embraced them, and passed out a seemingly endless supply of long-stemmed red roses. "I love you Al!"; "I love you too. Phew!"

Green's religious conversion came, in 1976, at the hands of an obsessive fan who, after a mental breakdown, snuck into his bathroom and hurled a pan of boiling grits over him because she felt he'd rejected her offer of marriage, even though the pair were never a couple.

He found God while recovering from his third-degree burns, and in the Albert Hall he called for those who believe in God to shout out: "Yeah, everything's gonna be all right!", which about 70 per cent of the punters did.

Musically, it was an odd night, veering between moments of pure soul-groove elation and tedious, self-congratulatory noodlings from the band.

Green's voice was still fantastic: raw, passionate, strong and supple. He had complete control of its lovely higher reaches. But he seemed incapable of letting a song alone.

Singing through the hits such as Love and Happiness and Let's Stay Together, he grinned, leapt about, fell to his knees, stuck out his tongue like a class clown with ADHD. There was no slow build to a melody or emotion, just a persistent fervour.

You had to close your eyes to feel the lyrics and to distract from the bizarre spectacle of the profusely sweating, pudgy man taking off his jacket and putting it back on, which he did during every single song. Why did he keep putting it back on?, I wondered, as it snagged at the elbow for the umpteenth time.

Al Green was restored to mainstream popular culture in the 1990s when he appeared regularly during hallucinatory scenes in the American TV series Ally McBeal, about the frustrated love lives of a group of eccentric lawyers.

The recurrent Green song from the show was his 1971 classic, Tired of Being Alone, and as the brass section blew in the riff, a whole congregation of hair-swishing women rose to their feet and worshipped Green.

And after a set lasting just over an hour, the Reverend Green hurled his sweat-soaked towel unto his flock, gave us one last pop-eyed grin, and departed.
 
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