VAN MORRISON
Guinness Fleadh
Motor Speedway at Sportman’s Park
Cicero, Chicago, USA
12 June, 1999

Tracklist:
01. Moondance
02. Back On Top
03. Cleaning Windows
04. Goin’ Down Geneva
05. Vanlose Stairway => Trans-Euro Train
06. New Symphony Sid (4:55)
07. In The Afternoon => Joe Turner Sings => Don’t You Make Me High => Sex Machine
08. Star of the County Down
09. Precious Time
10. Help Me
11. Jackie Wilson Said *
12. Gloria *

* w/Elvis Costello, backing vocals

Comment:
Van Morrison was the second-to-last performer on the main stage at this festival.
Other acts included Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, The Saw Doctors, Taj Mahal, Elvis Costello, and, curiously enough, Hootie and the Blowfish.

(Hootie was technically the “headliner” of the show, as the last performer of the evening. The promoter’s explanation was that they wanted to avoid a crush for the exit, and therefore put the *least* appealing artist on last so that fans would stream out in a leisurely fashion during their set. As one might expect, Hootie’s opening notes merely prompted a premature rush for the parking lot an hour before the scheduled conclusion.)

Van appears to hold a grudge against Chicago — this marked his first appearance here since 1984.
(In his subsequent shows here in January 2001, he cut his set on the second night to a mere 70 minutes — reportedly because he was offended by the powerful and positive reaction to opener Lonnie Brooks the previous night. To prevent Lonnie from stealing his thunder in the second show, Van forced him to begin his set as the doors opened — thus preventing the majority of the audience from even seeing any of his performance.)

Source 1:
Lineage: Sonic Studios => Sony D7 => 24-band EQ => CDR => WAV => FLAC => YOU

Source 2:
Sonic Studios => Sony D7 => 24-band EQ => CDR =>
Audio Alchemy Audio Cleaning Lab (for splitting track IDs
and evening out two jumps in levels) => CDR => CDEx ripper =>
FLAC

That said, this is an amazing show — I think it’s got much more energy than the following night
in Roseland. I taped this about five feet from the left speaker stack, so there is minimal crowd
noise (nobody was in front of me) and terrific range. The only flaw was that in my enthusiasm
I accidentally bumped the levels about 15 minutes into the set and didn’t notice my error for another
20 minutes. This has been mostly offset by normalizing the volume on the back end, but one
may notice a couple of level variations — hopefully not enough to hinder anyone’s enjoyment.

This is one of my favorite masters, and I don’t think it’s in wide
circulation — I have only traded it once or twice. There is a much lesser-quality
source circulating in the Elvis Costello community; I don’t know what is around in the VM
trading circles. Hope you like it!