Van Morrison
2001-12-29
Museumsquartier – Vienna, Austria

01 – Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart #1
02 – Celtic Swing
03 – Whatever Happened To PJ Proby
04 – Meet Me In The Indian Summer
05 – Naked In The Jungle
06 – Days Like This
07 – Have I Told You Lately
08 – Satisfied
09 – In The Afternoon > Ancient Highway > Joe Turner Sings > Louis Prima Sings > Raincheck > Hamlet
10 – Stop Drinking
11 – Jackie Wilson Said
12 – Jump Jive And Wail
13 – And The Healing Has Begun
14 – All Work And No Play
15 – It’s All in the Game>You Know What They’re Writing About>Rainbow 65>Make It Real One More Time
16 – Star Of The County Down
17 – Brown Eyed Girl
18 – Gloria

 

Comment: 1h35m

Lineup: Richard Dunn, Ned Edwards, Lee Goodall, Matt Holland, Pete Hurley, Bobby Irwin, Martin Winning

Guest: Candy Dulfer

Lineage: ? > CD trade > EAC > FLAC > SBE check > you

The Midnight Cafe Review 

I’ve posted a Youtube clip of this show and more over at my Substack.

Several reviews ago, I noted that my reviews come slowly because I just don’t have that much time to listen. I do my best listening in my car to and from work. I do listen at home, but usually when I’m doing something else and thus not paying close attention. This means it usually takes me the better part of a week to listen to an entire show.

Well, I’m getting better at listening but worse at writing. I don’t know if I’m riding around more for work, or more likely I’m not letting myself pause the music for any reason. Often, when I have something on my mind, I’ll talk it out to myself (and yes, I really do talk to myself). Usually, when I do that, I’ll stop the music because I know I won’t be paying attention. But for the last couple of weeks, I’ve forced myself to listen and not talk.

I now have a couple of shows fully listened to with notes, but I haven’t taken the time to review. If I get good at this, I might get two or three reviews in a week, which would be cool.

In my last Neil Young review, I complained about crowd noise. For that recording, there were a few folks talking rather loudly through the entire show. And the mics picked them up. For this recording, there is still some crowd noise, and it has that typical audience reverberation where it sounds like the show is happening in the next room, but I can’t hear any specific people talking (except for the occasional shout). I don’t know why that is. I do know there are directional mics that are designed to only hear sounds coming from one direction, which should help cut out crowd noise from around the microphone (except from directly in front, I guess).

Is that what happened on the Neil show? Were the talkers directly in front of the mics? Or did the taper have bad mics? Or maybe this crowd at the Van show was less talkative? I don’t understand any of that. Maybe our good friend OldNeumanntapr can explain the details. His recordings always sound wonderful.

The show begins with two instrumentals. Van apparently doesn’t come out until after “Inarticulate Speech of the Heart #1” as he gets announced just before “Celtic Swing.” “Whatever Happened To PJ Proby” and “Meet Me In the Indian Summer” are well played. They are very mellow and laid-back.

“Naked in the Jungle” is killer. Big jams, high energy. The audience recording doesn’t do it justice. He’ll do this several times throughout the night – play a couple of laid-back, mellow, or soulful songs and then just absolutely let loose.

“Days Like This” is very good. “Have I Told You Lately” is very jazzy. “Satisfied” has a great little groove. The whole show is very well played. The band and Van are syncing really well. “Jackie Wilson Said” is big and jazzy.

“Jump Jive and Wail” is fine. It is one of those songs that was probably a lot of fun to listen to if you were in the audience, but on tape you lose some of that energy. But it’s perfectly fine.

“And the Healing Has Begun” is gorgeous. So soulful. In the middle, there is this section where the strings solo for a bit, then the guitar, then the piano all get solos, and it’s just wonderful. Sometimes when they trade solos like that, it gets a little tedious, but here it works. Then they come together to create a wonderful groove. You know Van is into it because he does his whole “Digga Digga Dig” thing.

“All Work and No Play” is light and jazzy. It makes for quite a contrast to the soulfulness of “And the Healing Has Begun.” “It’s All in the Game” is wonderful, then he slips into a medley of several songs. All of which are sung very soulfully, but they wind up taking away from the beauty of “It’s All in the Game.”

“Brown Eyed Girl” is spirited. Van’s voice is in such fine form here. “Gloria” has some great sax from Candy Dulfer and a fun little outro. I’m thinking Dulfer being present all night added to that jazzy feeling I keep mentioning on several songs.

This really is a great show. The sound is quite good, and the performance is wonderful.

Van Morrison
Carre Theatre
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
September 29, 1986

Tracklist:

1. Celtic Swing
2. Northern Muse (Solid Ground)
3. Cry For Home
4. She Gives Me Religion
5. Tore Down a la Rimbaud
6. Vanlose Stairway
7. Beautiful Vision
8. It’s All in the Game>Make It Real One More Time
9. Domino
10. Cleaning Windows
11. Oh the Warm Feeling
12. Here Comes the Knight
13. Dweller on the Threshold
14. Help Me
15. And the Healing Has Begun
16. Gloria
17. In The Garden
18. Full Force Gal
19. Rave On John Donne

Neil Drinkwater – Keyboards
Ritchie Buckley – Saxophone
Jerome Rimson – Bass
Arty McGlynn – Guitar
Martin Drover – Trumpet
Ray Jones – Drums
Helen Bradley – Backing Vocals
June Boyce – Backing Vocals

Source 1:

Artwork

SHN Lineage: CDR > WaveLab (digital remastering) >CDR >WaveLab (DAE) > shorten v3.3

Known Flaws:

t8 – 2 seconds frequency interferences inbetween 0:03 and 0:05

Comment:

These shn files decode to the original remastered wav files as received from wolf himself.

Source 2:

FM Stereo Broadcast

SOURCE: DATA DVD (FLACS)

CDDA Test shows Tracks to be between 42/43% CDDA. Most probable cause for this is a DAT Transfer

somewhere in the linage using 32 kHz at 16 bits instead of 44.1 or 48 kHZ. This has ocurred on

some Dylan Bootlegs and they become mistaken as Lossy.

If I had any doubt that this recording was Lossless I can assure you it would not be in my collection.

Front Artwork (Adapted) and Rear Artwork by JTT

Source 3:

Here’s another of my favorites. This one re-mastered in 2001 by the legendary Wolf. I’m not sure of the linage but it sounds like a SB or FM to me. The first song of the concert was not included in the recording. (Moondance) (inst.). Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m just in this to share what I have.

Enjoy, twofthrs

I also have some random artwork that doesn’t come with any of the sources. I don’t remember where I got it. But you can have it too (click here)

The Midnight Cafe’s review:

This is a very good show with superb sound, but not a great one. It begins with a nice version of “Celtic Swing”. Vanomatic indicates they played an instrumental version of “Moondance,” but none of my sources have that. My post on the old blog also has “Moondance” on it, and that was definitely something he was doing regularly at the time, so I think it is safe to say he played it that night, but again I don’t have a copy of it.

The next three songs, “Northern Muse (Solid Ground)”, “Cry For Home”, and “She Gives Me Religion” are played very quickly. I don’t mean the tempo is fast; they just don’t last very long. They are each under three minutes. There are times when Van would basically play a medley of his hits at the start of the show, almost like he was trying to get through them to satisfy the casual fans before moving on to what he really wanted to do. This isn’t that. Those songs aren’t his greatest hits, and they aren’t quite a medley. But it does feel like he’s just trying to get through them. They aren’t bad performances. Van and his band are too good for that, but they feel rushed. Most of the show is good, but it feels a bit lacking. It doesn’t have that little something that makes his best shows so special. It lacks that Celtic Soul we all come for. Again, it isn’t bad. In fact its quite good. Had I been there in person, I would have raved about it. This is a very good band putting on a very good show, but for the most part Van just doesn’t seem to be in that special place he sometimes goes to.

“Tore Down A La Rimbaud” isn’t much longer; it clocks in at just three minutes and eight seconds, but it has some jaunty horns and a terrific little sax solo. The horns are really what stand out in this show. They really bring these songs to life. “It’s All in the Game/Make It Real One More Time” is where Van finally does seem to be feeling the spirit move him. He does that thing where he starts repeating himself as if thrown into a trance. It is glorious.

“Oh the Warm Feeling” has this lovely xylophone-esque intro. Probably just keyboards sounding beautiful. I’m terrible at instruments. ”Dweller on the Threshold” has some fantastic horn sections.

“And the Healing Has Begun” is where it is at. It is one of my favorite Van songs, and they just nail it here. There is some really beautiful guitar picking accompanied by some fine keyboard tickling. In my notes, I literally wrote: “Oh yeah, this is the stuff.”

I’ve probably underrated this show. It is a very fine performance. Indeed, Van doesn’t quite move into transcendence very often. Those early songs do feel truncated. But the sound quality is great, and non-transcendent Van is still wonderful. And there are a few moments where he gets the spirit, and those are very fine indeed.