Van Morrison - The Bottom Line, New York City, 11-1-1978, Late Show

Is it possible to separate a musician from the music he or she makes? That's a problem I've been facing when it comes to Van Morrison. He's always had a reputation as an asshole. I even have a friend who worked in a record store and encountered Morrison there decades ago. He said it was by far the most unpleasant interaction he ever had with a famous person (and lots of them came to this particular store). But Morrison has gone even further during the recent Covid pandemic, putting out albums with anti-vaccine and even antisemetic rants. (For the latter, check out the lyrics to his song "They Control the Media.") In a way, I'm kind of glad that he's had a slow and steady decline musically too, so I don't have to feel bad about missing out on his latest albums.

That said, he had a great run for a long time. I think his older music can still be celebrated. His musical output from the mid-1960s until about 1980 is great, and he had some worthy periods after that. Today, I just updated the links to all of his albums I'd previously posted. Many of them had gone dead. I also redid the volume balance between songs, and updated the mp3 tags to the new format. Rather than make an announcement just about that, I figured I'd post something else by him at the same time.

This concert is from 1978, after the release of his "Wavelength" album. He burned out a bit in the mid-1970s, waiting three years between releasing studio albums, which felt like eons back in those busy years, and he rarely performed concerts during that time as well. But this concert shows that he still had that magical "it" factor. Both the early and late shows were broadcast on the radio, so the sound quality is excellent. I've only included the late show because it contains all the songs from the early show plus a few more, and the performance is slightly better. He was in a rocking mood, and his new songs held up with his older ones. In particular, I've always felt the song "Wavelength" should have been a big hit.

This album is an hour and twenty minutes long.

01 Moondance (Van Morrison with Katie Kissoon)
02 Wavelength (Van Morrison)
03 Into the Mystic (Van Morrison)
04 Checkin' It Out (Van Morrison)
05 Hungry for Your Love (Van Morrison)
06 Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
07 Crazy Love (Van Morrison with Katie Kissoon)
08 Kingdom Hall (Van Morrison)
09 Tupelo Honey (Van Morrison)
10 Natalia (Van Morrison)
11 Help Me (Van Morrison)
12 Wild Night (Van Morrison)
13 Joyous Sound (Van Morrison)
14 Caravan (Van Morrison)
15 Cyprus Avenue (Van Morrison)

https://www.imagenetz.de/hsWYC

The cover photo is from 1978, but it's not clear exactly when or where it was taken beyond that.