VAN MORRISON-ASTRAL WEEKS LIVE AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL- LION RECORDS - NEAR MINT

	£		20
	$		27

Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl is the fifth live album recorded by Northern Irish singer/songwriter Van Morrison, and released in the US on February 24, 2009[1] (see 2009 in music) and on February 9, 2009, in the UK. It was recorded during two live concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California in 2008 and released on Morrison's new Listen to the Lion label and distributed by EMI.[2]

All songs written by Van Morrison

Side One

1. "Astral Weeks - I Believe I've Transcended"?6:32 - 3:24
2. "Beside You"?5:56

Side Two

1. "Slim Slow Slider - I Start Breaking Down"?4:08 - 3:37
2. "Sweet Thing"?5:38
3. "The Way Young Lovers Do"?3:18
4. "Cyprus Avenue - You Came Walking Down"?4:08 - 3:37

Side Three

1. "Ballerina - Move On Up"?6:36 - 3:10
2. "Madame George"?8:46

Side Four

1. "Listen to the Lion - The Lion Speaks"?5:17 - 2:29
2. "Common One"?6:14
3. "Gloria"?6:24

The live performances of the eight original songs that feature on the album were recorded on November 7 and 08, 2008. Coincidentally, they took place forty years after the classic Astral Weeks was first released by Warner Bros. Records in 1968. One of the original musicians, guitarist Jay Berliner, joined with the many other musicians on the revisited version of Astral Weeks.[5]

With only one rehearsal prior to the concerts and with Morrison, as producer, insisting on no post-production engineering, the live album sounds essentially as it was heard by the concert goers. Morrison has said about the concerts and live sound of the recording: "The Hollywood Bowl concerts gave me a welcome opportunity to perform these songs the way I originally intended them to be." He was further quoted: "There are certain dynamics you can get in live recordings that you cannot get in a studio recording...There was a distinct alchemy happening on that stage in Hollywood. I felt it."[9] "The new record was recorded live, what [you hear] is what was played in its raw form. There was no mixing, no tweaking, no post-production at all, and I like that raw and edgy sound in real time."[

Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl received rave reviews by prominent critics prior to release. Andy Whitman in Paste called the live album both "nearly miraculous" and a "tour-de-force", also further assessing it: "something delightfully unexpected and daring in a late career that has been increasingly characterized by playing it safe and keeping it simple."[26] Another early review by Mike Ragogna of The Huffington Post notes: "Through it all, Morrison is where he wants to be, onstage and in Heaven, singing, playing sax, guitar, and harmonica. The band's camaraderie is communicated musically, especially between Morrison and Astral's original guitarist, Jay Berliner."[27]

The word transcendent has often been used in the reviews of the concerts and live album of the Astral Weekssongs. A Blogcritics reviewer sums up his review with: "Van Morrison found the perfect outlet for his work. Not simply a rerelease, performing the songs again gives them even more soul than they did in 1968. There's a freedom to his voice that fills you up - like going to church - you feel deep inside. It's simple. It's transcendent."[28] Daily News critic Jim Farber concluded: "But its most transcendent moments showcase the pleasure of letting a singer take his voice to the limit."[29] The Observer critic's review commented that: "Transcendence is an overused word, but when Morrison hits his stride he seems to float onto another plane

Speaking of the 1968 Astral Weeks recording, Morrison told  David Wild with Rolling Stone: "It received no promotion, from Warner Bros.?that's why I never got to play the songs live. I had always wanted to play the record live and fully orchestrated?that is what this is all about. I always like live recording and I like listening to live records too. I'm not too fond of being in a studio?it's too contrived and too confining. I like the freedom of live, in-the-moment sound."[31]

In commenting further on the Hollywood Bowl performances in a January 2009 interview, Morrison said: "There was an alchemy that took place, "I could feel it, and other people tell me they could literally see it occurring. I thought it was just going on within me. But apparently I was not alone. By the looks of it, far from it."[32]

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