van morrison live

Listen: Van Morrison @ The Bottom Line, NYC – November 1, 1978

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

van morrison 1978_11_01_Bottom_Line_Front

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Van Morrison was enjoying a commercial renaissance with both this tour and the album he was promoting at the time. Always a magnetic live performer, Morrison delivered a stunning set in New York’s intimate Bottom Line club – the venue that launched the careers of both Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, among countless others. Opening with an introduction by J. Geils Band’s Peter Wolf and a jazzed up version of “Moondance,” the show provided a healthy mix of material from his then-new Wavelength LP and all the best-loved Morrison classics.
–concertvault.com

Morrison, an artist of constant reinvention is revealed here as an musician willing to restructure, reorganize and retool previous glory’s while constantly creating new and exciting work. This 1978 live performance is a perfect representation of Morrison in another era of change and is worthy of official release and constant inspection.
–the rock room (blog)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The Bottom Line
New York City, NY
November 1, 1978

  • Van Morrison – lead vocals, guitar, piano, saxophone
  • Bobby Tench – guitar, backing vocals
  • Herbie Armstrong – guitar
  • Mickey Feat – bass
  • Pete Bardens – keyboards
  • Peter Van Hooke – drums
  • Pee Wee Ellis – saxophones
  • Katie Kissoon – backing vocals
  • Anna Peacock – backing vocals

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April 4: Van Morrison in Grugahalle, Essen 1982

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

Televised as a Rockpalast Special; The correct date for the Van Morrison show is Sunday April 4. The Rockpalast Night where this show was taken from started on April 3 around 11:00 pm with Rick James. Van played the second set and this was around 1:00 am on April 4. Therefore date of the actual show started on April 3 (in the late evening) and ended on April 4 (in the early morning). The broadcast date was the following evening April 4. Most of the Rockpalast shows are broadcast the date following the actual show. Hence the show was played over the 3rd and 4th of April 1982. It was broadcast live across Europe on April 4, 1982 that evening. This is why this show sometimes circulates as April 3 , 1982 (panicstream.net)

TV Show
Grugahalle, Essen
4 April 1982

Lenght: 1h18m10s

Musicians:

  • Van Morrison
  • John Allair – keyboards
  • Tom Donlinger – drums
  • Pee Wee Ellis – saxophone
  • David Hayes – bass
  • Mark Isham – trumpet
  • Pauline Lozano – backing vocal
  • Chris Michine – guitar
  • Annie Stocking – backing vocal
  • Bianca Thornton – backing vocal
  • Peter Van Hooke – drums

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Van Morrison: 5 Great Live Versions of His Brilliant “Warm Love”

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Look at the ivy on the cold clinging wall
Look at the flowers and the green grass so tall
It’s not a matter of when push comes to shove
It’s just an hour on the wings of a dove[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The great song was included on his 1973 album Hard Nose the Highway. It was first performed live May 21, 1973 (Odyssey Room, Sunnyvale, CA, USA), and last time VM played it in concert was December 5, 2017 (Europe Hotel, Belfast). It has been performed 82 times live, mostly in 1973, 1974 & 2017.

Here are 5 great versions…

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Van Morrison: 9 Great versions of “Listen To The Lion”

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]And all my love come down
All my love come tumblin’ down
All my love come tumblin’ down
All my love come tumblin’ down
Oh, listen listen
To the lion
Oh, listen listen listen
To the lion…
Inside of me
Oh, oh, oh

—
“And all my love come tumbling down….” An 11-minute journey into music as a distillation of spirit, as Morrison searches his “very soul” for the lion “inside of me”. The music is as delicate as breath on a window pane, looking out on a vision of hope and redemption. Van’s voice scats, breathes, roars, lilts and sways before finally dissolving in a rapturous journey into glossolalia. “And we sailed and we sailed….”
~The Telegraph
[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

“Listen To The Lion” is one of my favorite Van Morrison songs. Here are 9 different versions.

Wikipedia:

“Listen to the Lion” is a song featured on Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison’s sixth album, Saint Dominic’s Preview (1972). Its poetic musings and “bass-led shuffle” lead back to Astral Weeks territory.

Released July 1972
Recorded Spring/Summer 1971, Columbia Studios, San Francisco
Genre Folk rock, R&B
Length 11:08
Label Warner Bros. Records
Writer Van Morrison
Composer Van Morrison
Producer Ted Templeman, Van Morrison

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]..but arguably the best due to Van’s most amazing vocal performance ever. The song is an 11:08 minute soul journey into finding and following your inner voice amid crashing piano, cascading acoustic guitar, and strumming mandolin. That alone makes it a good song, but what takes it to best of all time level is at about the five minute mark Van stops singing words and starts scatting non-stop for the next 3 minutes. He growls, wails, roars, and howls as if possessed and wrestling with the lion inside. After these vocal fireworks the exhausted Van finishes the song barely whispering about sailing on a journey to mystical Caledonia. A fascinating, one of a kind song.
~theframjak (hubpages.com)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Van-Morrison-Saint-Dominic-s-Preview-1972

Album version:

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Van Morrison – 5 Wonderful Live Versions of “And The Healing Has Begun”

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

 

And we’ll walk down the avenue again
And we’ll sing all the songs from way back when
And we’ll walk down the avenue again and the healing has begun

And we’ll walk down the avenue in style
And we’ll walk down the avenue and we’ll smile
And we’ll say “baby, ain’t it all worthwhile?” when the healing has begun

–

“It starts just like ‘Cyprus Avenue’, no coincidence as the line about ‘songs from way back when’ hints, and with a walk down the avenue (of dreams), to the sound of a haunted violin. A song of full, blazing sex as well as revelation. The healing here is like that in Arthurian myth, the wounded King restored through the action of the Holy Grail, but it is also through as graphic a seduction, almost, as the original live version of “Gloria”
-Brian Hinton (Celtic Crossroads)

This beauty was recorded at the Record Plant Studios in Sausalito, California in spring 1979. He has performed it live 274 times according to the brilliant website ivan.vanomatic.de.

Here are 5 lovely versions..

Live At The Oasis Centre – Putting The Boot In – Swindon – 1999:

I want you to put on your pretty summer dress
You can wear your Easter bonnet and all the rest
And I want to make love to you yes, yes, yes, when the healing has begun

Louder, when the healing has begun
So good
Whoo
All right, whoo
Yeah
Aah
Whoo

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Van Morrison – 7 Brilliant Live Performances from 1987

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]I saw you from a foreign window
Bearing down the sufferin’ road
You were carryin’ your burden
To the palace of the Lord
To the palace of the Lord

I spied you from a foreign window
When the lilacs were in bloom[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Facts:

  • 17 live shows
    • 3 of them as a “guest appearance”
    • 2 were broadcasts
  • most played song: Vanlose Stairways & Moondance – 12 times

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