Thursday, September 6, 2007

VANS FRIDAY

A little bit of history behind this one. Taken from Martin Scorsese's 1978 film "The Last Waltz", Van plays Caravan from his album Moondance accompanied by The Band. Its rousing performance to say the least and you can catch glimpses of Robbie and levon lashin' into the songs structure. Apparently Van at this time had touches of stage fright, it took his manager Harvey Goldsmith to kick him on stage, even after he had been announced he was back peddling. No need to worry as you can see from the performance, he leaves the stage strutting like a peacock. According to musical historians this is where Van was bestowed with one of his nicknames, Van the Man. You can see Robbie Robertson beaming as he shouts the name to the audience at Van's departure from the stage. Apparently The Band also gave him the name Belfast Cowboy. Nick Hornby in his book Songbook about his 31 favourite songs, names "Caravan" from the live album, It's Too Late to Stop Now as the song he wants played at his funeral. He says that "in the long, vamped passage right before the climax Morrison's band seems to isolate a moment somewhere between life and its aftermath, a big, baroque entrance hall of a place where you can stop and think about everything that has gone before." Then he humorously realizes that this is also the place where Morrison introduces the band and wonders how the mourners will feel about hearing all the unknown people's names being called out as they file out of the funeral, but says "I'm not changing my mind, so there. "Turn it up, Turn it, little bit higher, its got soul."

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