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Van Morrison 07/24/73
Rainbow Theater, London, England
Set I
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
Set II
Tracks from this concert on CD only:

I Paid The Price
Saint Dominic's Preview
Gloria [cut, Dave Fanning talking over]
Set III

Comment
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

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.
Last Changed By Pete Morin-Smith
Click 'Edit Show' or the 'Set I(II)(III)' or 'Comment' text to make corrections.
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Collectors With This Show
User (active/rating) Media / # Show Sound Details DB Source User Source
Todd B (1/5) DVD-PAL / 1 View   Pro Shot
Rob@LTBV (1/0) CD / 1 View  
Rob@LTBV (1/0) DVD / 1 View  
Notes: PRO 9.5/SBD 9.5
Lynn S (1/0) CD / 1 View  
Pete Morin-Smith (1/5) CDr / 1 View   see notes
Notes: 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
Pete Morin-Smith (1/5) DVD / 1 View   See Notes
Notes: 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 Video : Original broadcast > VHS > DVD > Mpeg2 (no reencoding) > merging sources, overdubing the remastered sound and authorizing > DVD DVD features : Video : PAL format - 720 x 576 - 8900 kbps - neither PTS nor GOP size error Audio : ac3 48kHz 224 kbps from the 48 kHz remastered files.
Bob McHugh (1/5) DVD / 1 A A View   pro shot>British TV>DVD
Notes: Pro Shot. Pal menus & chapters synched with soundboard audio.
Bill (0/5) cd-r / 1 A A View   FM
Notes: FLAC
Pat (0/4.8) flac / 2 View   Broadcast
Notes: 4-Eyed Freak ReMastering
JohnO (0/0) HDD / 0 View  
Erick (0/0) DVD / 1 A View  
Notes: Proshot
terapinfly (0/0) DVD-R / 1 View   Pro-Shot PAL
Notes: 4eyed freak
Marklar (0/0) DVD / 1 View  
Notes: PAL
Ryan Davis (0/0) DVD / 1 View   Audio : 1-12 : Master tape > WAV 44.1 kHz > WAV 48 KHz > Remastering and speed...
Notes: Proshot DVD
t (0/0) dvd / 1 A A View  
Matt Berman (0/0) DVD / 1 View  
Bob Brock (0/0) DVD / 1 View  
mitykc (0/0) / 1 View  
MauiJason (0/0) DVD-R / 1 View  
jimbojones (0/0) dvd / 1 A+ View  
Jeff G (0/5) dvd / 1 View  
Notes: PRO
Adam (0/5) DVD / 1 View  
Notes: Proshot
David Castor (0/0) / 1 View  
Tom Gunn (0/0) DVD / 0 A View   SBD