TALK about long goodbyes. Townes Van Zandt had been on stage barely 30

minutes when he started apologising for a curfew not giving him time for

more songs. Then, like the party soak who sinks endless farewell drinks

and eventually falls asleep behind the couch at breakfast time, he went

on, and on.

This fooled a few early leavers, probably newer converts, because

veteran Van Zandt followers know it ain't over until it's over. Mind

you, if I'd gone along on the strength of the ''great songwriter''

advance publicity, I might have felt I'd been had, too. Oh, he writes

great songs. Poncho and Lefty, magnificently covered by Willie Nelson,

for one. But he chucked that away like a chip wrapper.

There's a touch, too, of the Woody Guthries about his song selection.

So you get an unquestionably sincere love song; a tender lullaby for his

daughter . . . but then a lyric inviting a shrimp down to New Orleans

where the women will take him out of his shell. Later he'll launch into

Drunk Ira Hayes, a powerful tale of a Native American, a serial turner

of the other cheek, a tale made somehow the more powerful by Van Zandt's

obvious pre-gig indulgence.

Of course, being a Texan, Van Zandt also plays the blues. His choice

was co-written, he said, by Lightnin' Hopkins, Blind Willie McTell, and

himself, although its meter suggested a collaboration between W C Handy

and W C Fields. Then a brief, lucid guitar break would emerge and not

for the first time the words ''wayward genius'' sprang to mind.