VAN MORRISON

Thursday, 18 May 1972

Carnegie Hall
154 West 57th Street
New York, New York 10019
USA


FLAC master, 20 March 2022, by elegymart:
Analog audience recording (mono): analog audio master > 1st generation (Type II CrO2) 90-minute analog audio cassette {from the Elegymart Archives} > Sony R500 (for SBM passthrough) > two Kodak Ultima (w/ Infoguard) silver 74-minute CDRs > EAC (WAV extraction; secure mode) > WAV > SHNtool (joined all WAVs) > Cool Edit Pro 2.0 (audio cleanup) > SHNtool (fixed SBE) > CD Wave (track splits) > TLH (WAV > FLAC8).
Created this text file.


Total running time [1:31:30]
----------------------------------------------------------
01 Astral Weeks [6:29]
02 I Will Be There [2:58]
03 Caravan [7:12]
04 Misty [3:19]
05 Wild Night [4:07]
06 Moonshine Whiskey [8:25]
07 Tupelo Honey [6:18]
08 Listen to the Lion [6:56]
09 Into the Mystic [6:18]
10 St. Dominic's Preview [6:16]
11 Little Girl > He Ain't Give You None [5:05]
12 Brown Eyed Girl [4:42]
13 Cyprus Avenue [12:53]
-- encore --
14 Domino (incl. band introductions) [5:54]
15 Blue Money [4:30]


Band line-up:
Van Morrison - vocals, guitar
Doug Messenger - guitar
Tom Salisbury - keyboards
Bill Church - bass
Dahaud Shaar (David Shaw) - drums
-- and probably --
Jack Schroer - soprano, alto, and baritone saxophones
Jules Broussard or "Boots" Rolf Houston - saxophone
Ellen Schroer, Janet Planet, Mark Springer - backing vocals


Notes:

THE ELEGYMART ARCHIVES, VOL. 9

As a follow-up to the Beata Moon upload, here's another show that has been sitting on the hard drive waiting to be shared for the past six years or so, from another artist that has taken a reactionary approach towards Covid. Rather than focus on his present cantankerous compliance capers, let's go back to the enrapturing days of old. Here's a recording that used to make the rounds often in the tape-trading days. When email groups and listservs hit the scene, and later CDR trees, it aided in the wider circulation of these recordings. Within the structure of a CDR tree, if you were the initial seed or branch, there was more work involved, as it meant you were responsible for making sure the integrity of the audio files met muster -- from the avoidance of TAO gaps to thoroughly carrying out the duty of passing along the shows to your leaves. The advantage to being a leaf was that you were at the end point of the structure, with no obligation to do any further circulating. However, when trees went awry, they would die a premature death as some branches went AWOL and other misadventures ensued -- no different than a one-on-one trade in that regard, and sometimes being a leaf meant the risk of never seeing a requested show make its way to you.

This Carnegie Hall recording around the time of "Saint Dominic's Preview" is a somewhat distant and average recording, but it captures Van at the height of his live performing powers in one of his ever-fluctuating band configurations before it all coalesced into the Caledonia Soul Orchestra the year after. If he hid behind his sunglasses during this performance to shield his developing stagefright, there's no indication of such from the response he receives as you hear audience members swoon to his every vocal flourish, particuarly in the middle of "Moonshine Whiskey."

Because of his popularity, Van live recordings are not hard to come by, but there are not that many from this early '72 tour in circulation. Santa Monica in late April and the one from Boston on the night after this seem to be the extent of it. The reason this particular transfer of the recording was never shared was simply in hopes of waiting until a definitive upload from the master recording came along, but after all these years, that doesn't seem to be likely. Every instance of a share of this show has yielded the same copy of this source -- which has always been littered with CDR buffer underruns that sound like a lawn sprinkler gone haywire. That may explain why this show doesn't seem to get reseeded more frequently.

The source for this upload goes back to the tape trading days, and so it bypasses the multiple CDR generations and disc extraction errors that plague the commonly circulating version. The cassette that was transferred is no longer, but was received in trade as a first gen tape (how much credence to lend to that is up to you). The transfer to CDR was done long ago, without thorough documentation at the time, and is also no longer extant. Sadly, there does appear to be some very light hiss reduction that was applied at the time, but it's tough to recall going back 23 years or so what tweaks and processing the cassette recording was put through. Tape dropouts throughout were present on the original tape source. The taper stopped the recorder between each song, to conserve tape (as evidenced by the comment at beginning of "Tupelo Honey"). Fades were applied to those abruptly loud tape stops and starts back when the CDR transfer was done. There are what sounds like a few ticks here and there but they are the taper or friends clapping closely near the recorder.

One assurance that can be given is that this transfer was properly ripped with EAC and free of CDR extraction flaws. On the version that commonly circulates, "Astral Weeks" sounds like it's been dropped into the beginning of "Apocalypse Now" in place of The Doors' "The End" -- the buffer underruns cut through the music like a fleet of Hueys in the jungles of Vietnam.

The recorder isn't optimally situated, and from the sounds of it, could be resting on the taper's knee during "Cyprus Avenue" as doubts emerge amongst the taper and company whether the deck is operational or not. Most amusing is when the taper offers live reportage at the start of the encores. The band is introduced during "Domino" but the distant recording makes most of the members' names indiscernible. Will leave it to the experts to correct the band line-up here. The following night in Boston circulates as a clearer recording, but unfortunately Van dispensed with the band rundown, so no clues can be picked up from there. Despite the original recording's sonic shortcomings, if you are looking for an upgrade to the current version in circulation, this is it for the time being.

Enjoy,
elegymart