Van Morrison
Rainbow Theatre
London, England
July 24, 1973

Warm Love *
Take your Hands Out Of My Pocket
Here Comes The Night
I Just Want To Make Love To You
Brown Eyed Girl
Moonshine Whiskey
Moondance
Help Me
Domino
Caravan
Cyprus Avenue
Wild Night

LineUp :
Van Morrison : Vocals
John Platania – guitar
Jeff Labes – keyboards
Jack Schroer – saxophones
Bill Atwood – trumpet
David Hayes – bass
Dahaud Shaar – drums
Terry Adams – cello
Nancy Ellis – viola
Tom Halpin – violin
Tim Kovatch – violin
Nathan Rubin – violin

Source 1:
4-Eyed Freak remastering

Sources :
Tracks 1-11 from the 27 may 1974 original BBC “simulcast” : audio come from the stereo radio feed, video come from a rare VHS recording of the BBC2 broadcast.
Track 12 “Wild Night” : audio comes from the 31 dec 1975 OGWT BB2 broadcast, video comes from a dutch repeat in 1980.
Tracks 13-15 “I Paid the price”, “Saint Dominic’s Preview” and “Gloria” come from the RTE 1974 broadcast.

Lineage:
Audio :
1-12 : Master tape > WAV 44.1 kHz > WAV 48 KHz > Remastering and speed correction > WAV 44.1 KHz > FLAC
13-15 : Master tape > WAV 44.1 kHz > FLAC > WAV > Remastering and speed correction > FLAC

Notes (thanks to setlist.com and to the Van Morrison Website)

The Rainbow Theatre show was first broadcasted by the BBC2 as part of the Old Grey Whistle Test on the 27 may 1974. It was aired simultaneously on stereo FM radio and on mono TV. This was one of the earliest stereo radio broadcasts, and the first simultaneous TV/radio broadcast of a “rock” concert.
It was repeated on the 9 oct 1980 on BBC2 as well. ALL the previous copies that are in circulation (known as “Over The Rainbow” and “Under The Rainbow”) are from the 1980 rebroadcast.

“Over the Rainbow” is a bad quality stereo recording (according to the Hayward website : [Over the Rainbow] sounds as though it could’ve been taken straight from a notoriously bad-sounding LP). “Under the Rainbow” is better, but it’s mono.

What’s more, they are very incomplete. “Warm Love” was only aired on the initial BBC 1974 broadcast and dropped after that from future broadcasts. “Wild Night”, “I Paid the price”, “Saint Dominic’s Preview” and “Gloria” have never been broadcasted on BBC but only on a 1980 Dutch broadcast (WN) or on a 1974 Irish broadcast by RTE (IPTP, SDP, G). Hence, those 5 tracks seldom (or never) circulated before.

Same issues with the videos/DVDs previously circulating : they all come from the 1980 repeat, have a medium to very bad image and sound quality, and all are mono.

SAW did a fantastic work in researching and finding good recordings of both the original 1974 video and stereo radio broadcasts.
The rare “lost” tracks were unearthed from Harm’s archives. Their sound quality is much lower than the other sources, that’s why they are given as “bonus”.

The challenge was then to remaster the sound from old audio tape sources (first generation from stereo off-air, but recorded onto low grade cassettes as most people did at the time) and to synchronise it to the video that originaly had a bad mono sound. Of course, the audio tape had a dramaticaly bad pitch and a very irregular speed, so it had to be adjusted every 30 seconds. I now know what purgatory looks like.
The incomplete “Wild Night” video that came separated was then merged to the BBC source, without cutting the end of the song as it originaly was.

So here it is for you : the most complete and best quality (untill we find a reel-to-reel recording, or Van releases it) package of both the video and audio versions, in full stereo.

Enjoy it !

Xav

Source 2:
JTT
This Capture:
BBC 2 TV Edited Broadcast (Can’t Confirm Date)

Although this Capture is Mono the sound is far superior to the circulating Stereo (and Mono)
copies, much more solid and clean.

The first Broadcast was an Early Simulcast and the balance was pretty rough and off centre as
can be heard on Van Morrison For Radio set. I recorded that myself and scrapped the result.

LINEAGE: Tandberg 3900SD > Soundforge PRO 10c > FLAC Level 8

Capture, Mastering & Artwork, JTT