A white kid born into the troubles of N. Ireland hears Detroit R and B on Radio America, and decides THAT’S what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. And he did, because he’s Van Morrison. And we get to enjoy it all. How great is that ?
This was his comeback album. He just dropped out of sight for about three years for a much needed rest. I think it wasn't long after his daughter was born. Music had changed a bit and he never missed a beat. Just love him. He's truly a force.
when he turns, just after the slow intro, cues the guitar, starts clapping and turns back into the mic fully fired up - you're watching one of the very best at work...right there! all hail The Man.
+Peter Molloy , saw Van at the Tower Theater Philadelphia October 1978 Wavelenght tour i wanted to take my old Irish Dad (RIP) because he loved Van as a 70 something at the time it wasn't meant to be
Forgotten how great a tune this is. Back in the day, saw Vand and the Wavelength tour in Toronto - loved the album and the title track. Just came across this live version and I can't stop playing it. One of Van's overlooked songs - stacks up against his other classics!
Yes, Brian, there was some spark in the title track. However, for me, the whole album, played in sequence regenerates a fresh spontaneous musical spark. Whatever I'm going through in my roller coaster life, there is a track that speaks to me in different nuanced ways. Also, no medication or counseling can lift my spirits in the way the choruses to "Na-na-na-na Natalia..." and "Checkin' It Out" lift me and keep me aloft hovering just above life's messy paperwork and interdependent obligations. Any way that the players bring "Wavelength" alive on any night or afternoon matinee that Van and his band goes at it leaves me feeling refreshed in ways that somehow are a balm to whatever grinding is going on in my brain, lifting the heaviness from my own messes and failures and providing some tonic horizon. Also, while I wasn't a big Van Morrison fan before this album came out, I was living in Venice, CA an alley or two away in a funky unfurnished beach house where I rented a room from a very idiosyncratic middle aged guy who seemed to retire from life and was roller skating all day and taking high colonics to cleanse himself of something. This was well before any gentrification had taken and Venice, especially our little area on Brooks a block or two from Speedway was scary. Known to be the turf of bikers whose dba was the Gardner Gang. I was a young kid, barely 20, left my east coast urban life in Flushing behind and just working day jobs trying to make the rent while pursuing creative writing on the side was a struggle. There was a fearsome motorcycle gang living in a funkier beach house a few houses down from us and I came home from work one day, in the middle of a sunny southern California day a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean to find a live man laying in the middle of little Brooks Ave bleeding, apparently stabbed. Van himself was apparently fond of coming down to the rough yet also tourist magnet reaches of cafe, bar and bakery strand of that part of Venice to play music and sing on the beach with his friends. I didn't realize or know until I began studying Cult Dynamics and cult formation at U.C.-Berkeley a coupla three years later under Richard Ofshe, a fellow Flushing immigrants' kid who'd advanced academically by studying the cults that were sweeping Northern California and seekers coast to coast in our deeply dis-illusioned new nation of dreamers, activists, actors and deal-makers. The timing of Ofshe's participation in some de-programming trials and civil suits filed by families against some of these cults proved formative to me when I resumed my under grad studies. That Morrison himself had sought the comforts and stability of not only the Jehovah's Witnesses from his Mom's side of the family, but also that he'd found L. Ron Hubbard and some Dianetics courses useful in unlocking his own intuitive creativity as the dedications of his albums bore in the late 70's and early 80's helped me realize how layered real life can be. There's the baby and then there's the bath water... So, "Kingdom Hall" carried a complex set of emotions as "Venice, USA" did. "Checking It Out" left me feeling so good inside that it was the comfort that perhaps prevented me from wandering into some of the darker orgs and associations that piqued my curiosity and inner seeker self. "Take It Where You Find It," "Lifetimes" and "Santa Fe\Beautiful Obsession" spoke to the way the core vinyl records and cassettes that along with a few cinder block shelves of paperbacks formed the basis for my continuing searches (via journalism and a bit of analytical distance in discussions with those who had become joiners), rather than putting myself at the disposal of capitalistic enterprises masquerading as Healing and Wellness spiritual endeavors. "Kingdom Hall" and "Wavelength" along with "Santa Fe\Beautiful Obsession" were kickers of ecstatic prayerful release for me and as much tokens of the redemptive qualities I found in the musics I was drawn to as the fiction and non-fiction lit that formed my guard rails. I was meeting people every day who were experimenting with life styles and disciplines (or lack thereof...) that seemed to spark creativity, but my own research always led me to darker human ambitions opportunistically preying on seekers who were drawn from all walks of life and having their emotional vulnerabilities capitalized on. Just down the beach in Santa Monica the Narc Anon movement had coalesced from an adjunct to Alcoholics Anonymous into a full blown authoritarian cult called and trade-marked Synanon, led by its leader Chuck Dederich and surrounded like L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics into the dba Scientology by cut-throat business modelers. Anyhoow, this and Van's other spiritual questing albums kept speaking to me, always in ways that deepened from my own layers of experiences and life's lessons and no matter how far the narrator and bandleader could lurch after any "Beautiful Obsession" somewhere he seemed to have the inner resources to gather around the verities that do lay at the heart of paths and traditions that endure and are based in nothing more complex than variations on the Golden Rule. No, not whoever owns the gold, rules. Rather the basic empathic way we continue to expose our vulnerabilities to others cause there is some redemptive quality that accrues over time, even if some scoundrels or darker souls do take some advantage of us on our pilgrims' progress...Van and Pee Wee Ellis's take on Mose Allison's blues scripture of bearing up while disillusioned, "If You Only Knew," from his even more Scientology-immersed years in the early 1980's on the SENSE OF WONDER album anchors the woo-hoo airy fairy excesses with some good and sobering common sense. Nobody besides Mose really does Mose's repertoire as well as Van with his collaborators Pee Wee Ellis and Georgie Fame arranging, leading and producing those musical touchstones always filled with sessions where the spark in the players bringing out Van's intuitive vision and each album of this period (and I later came to fall head over heels for his earlier solo work from his upstate NY and Northern California creative collaborations and mytho-poetic sojourns) becomes the gift that keeps giving. Keep on doing and writing, Brian! Health and balance through this time of viral and other plagues Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Shifters and Song Chasers Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa Media Disc-US-sion List
hey there, KB... tight, indeed...and, not sure if you've caught up on Van since your comment a year ago? Hope this link shows up.... if not, youtube search for Van Morrison, Caravan, The Last Waltz,,,, incredible performance.... the movie itself is worth watching.... it has Clapton, Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and others... directed by Scorcese, amazing live concert film! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-44wDwMQVqCc.html
Saw this Show in Houston I think 78 small auditorium sound was pristeen. I was 18 and dreaming of a career in music and he put on a clinic on how to make the magic happen. His command of the band and the crowd was spellbinding and I learned more in one night than I could have in 20 years. I think they did Wavelength for 15 minutes that night. I've seen him phone in some shows in New Orleans, but I will never forget that night. Some of my favorite stuff from him are Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, Rave on Jonne Donne, and I wish he could get a band that could play Cleaning Windows because that is one of his hippest songs. Mark Knophler came up with the cool lick and did the guitar parts on 1 version not sure which album. Incredible song. Van takes simple lyrics about his job, where he lived and make them into magic. Smell of the bakery from accross the street, got in my nose..........haaaaa Listened to this song one day in a Beach House in Gulf Shores Al with my drummer for 3 hours on repeat and hooted and hollered everytime it finished while drinking a 5th of Stoli Vodka. Glorius Day. This video brought back a flood of memories, thank you thank you
@George Ivan Morrison I'm honored you gave the time to reply. I've loved your music since my teens. The music world should give you a Crown. Again, I thank you for deeming me important enough for a response
No I was not at this gig to see my favorite 1st Celtic cousin in action but I can watch this video or can go about my works and listen to the music on my radio, This recording is magical but I would not expect anything less from Van the Man, Van and my grandmother was serious when she told us to be true, play it straight and do not take any nonsense from anyone, be the person that people can believe and trust in, Thanks, Van you learned this lesson very well
Van Morrison - vocals; John Altham - saxophones; Herbie Armstrong - guitar; Peter Bardens - keyboards; Mickey Feat - bass; Pat Kyle - saxophones; Toni Marcus - violin & vocals; Bobby Tench - guitar; Peter Van Hooke - drums; Katie Kissoon - backing vocals; Anna Peacock - backing vocals
Peter Bardens (1944 - 2002) was an English keyboardist and a founder member of the British progressive rock group Camel. He played keyboards, sang, and wrote songs with Andrew Latimer. During his career, Barden worked alongside Rod Stewart, Mick Fleetwood, and Van Morrison. RIP!
This is another day..and I got to say this one continues to be one of my many favorites. The Musicians, the Singers, and Van Morrison are Strong and definitely and absolutely Irresistible.
Cooking, listening, singing, and dancing, this beautiful and vibrant music, like the movement of the waves of the sea. Wonderful! Thanks and congratulations to Van Morrison and his band!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻😍♥️🤗
If those hard-rocking bands of this world could power into a song like Van douse and how he lifts up the spirits of the people high so they will never forget for the rest of their lives. Those hard-rocking bands could learn a lot for cousin Van.
The accompanists are fantastic: The singers, the guitarist, the pianist, and the violinist especially are wonderful. Good that he was able to get them to do this date.
Was going to disagree as I love the Saturday Night Live performance and the one from LA that was widely circulating at the time but by the time of the violin/synth break I was sold - This was definitely the band for the song!!!
lots to love here ... I like when he brings it down to the core ... in the dark ... the fiddler stays freaky .. the audience kicks it back up with their own powerful beat. Wavelength
Benjamin like you I am sure they were so memorized by this magic they lost control of their hands and pressed the wrong button. For nobody could dislike the voice in its prime.
Van's real talent is he finds a unique delivery for particular songs. This time it's the vibrato I don't think I've heard it in any album other than "Wavelength". Maybe also in "Hungary for Your Love"
Someone please send this to a RU-vid Reaction personality, maybe Mr. Video-he'll love it and know what to do with it. Thanks, plenty. Forever to be apreciated.
Trump got impeached for the second time today and had my toes tapping, so to celebrate I headed off to this incredible 1979 Van Morrison live rendition of Wavelength. Yeah. My heart is strong.
Set me off with your Wavelength, searching for my first Hi -Fi Stereo, dub Onkyo - Polk operatoro ,blowing my mind away, searching for that Wavelength!