I’d spent most of the day on the road, driving from Montreal to Toronto specifically for the midweek concert. At the time, I was working for a bookstore chain as a lowly management trainee, which among its many benefits was if management becked, I called. I had hired on with the company in Toronto and had only been working there for a few months when they asked me to do a stint in one of their Montreal stores, which was short-staffed and needed someone who could speak French. So me and my rusty French headed back down the road to Montreal for a six-week stretch, with the proviso that I simply had to have two days off to get back to Toronto to see Van on October 25. “Oui, oui, mademoiselle.” Continue reading →

It would be a long while, a good long while, before I got to see Van again.

In the years that followed, I lived on my own little planet, and Van lived on his, albeit his planet was a bit bigger than mine, by a couple hundred miles at least. I satisfied my rabid interest by listening to his albums, wearing down Astral Weeks, Moondance, and His Band and the Street Choir on my two-bit record player. I thought I was in heaven having three LPs of his to balance on the spindle and let fall for hours of listening pleasure. Van continued to be a workhorse in the studio, and I was the lucky benefactor of a new release every year – starting with Tupelo Honey in 1971 and, in quick succession, Saint Dominic’s Preview, Hard Nose the Highway, Veedon Fleece and the quintessential live album, It’s Too Late to Stop Now. It’s probably been said by more knowledgeable fans than I, that if Van had made a career-changing move into basket weaving at that point, we would have been well-served with what we had. Continue reading →

They let us in at 10:40. Our $2.50 tickets got us four seats in the second to last row of the balcony, with no one behind us, so we moved back there to enjoy the show with a little more leg room. The show didn’t end up starting until after midnight and for the next two hours all I did was sit there, jumping out of my skin. I don’t remember a single song he did. What I do remember was that Van was having a hard time standing and there were a lot of brown Export Ale beer bottles on the stage. I was mesmerized. Continue reading →

On a Magic Night Like This

This story first appeared in Wavelength, the unofficial Van Morrison fanzine produced and edited by the very talented Simon Gee.

February 22, 1971. My first time. Van was playing in Montreal!

For all the good that did me. At least that’s when I first heard them announce it on the radio. It was right about midnight one night late in January, and as was my wont in those days, I was listening to the radio under the covers, the lights were out and the music was barely a whisper. I was firmly ensconced in my final year at St. Helen’s School, and one of the rules was absolutely no sounds after the matron had been down the halls hours earlier declaring “Silence!” Getting caught listening to the radio was worth a demerit, and I couldn’t afford another one. Continue reading →

For two weeks straight, I played that sucker till my arm was sore from picking up the needle. And every day my mother would yell up the stairs, “Would you TURN that bloody racket down!” That would probably have been around the fifth listen, when I’d have cranked it up, on my little suitcase record player. But that was OK, because I liked it quiet too. Continue reading →

Getting Into the Music

Life while growing up in the Vale household provided very few mysteries. By the time I was 14, we were living in our fourth house – we consisting of Mom and Dad, my two brothers, and me – in the suburbs of Montreal. It was my mother’s dream house, complete with two-car garage and three bathrooms; the only thing missing was the white picket fence, and I’m sure the only reason we didn’t have one of those is because none of the neighbors had one either.

Musically, we were an upstairs-downstairs family. Downstairs, my parents listened to Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and Dean Martin on the console (which was completely off limits for the kids), while upstairs, behind closed bedroom doors, the younger generation listened to whatever struck our fancy. Continue reading →

There was a time when flying was fun: before my shoes were bombs and my laptop housed the makings of a terrorist plot, when lunch was more than a handful of pretzels and breakfast even existed. After it’s determined I am not a fugitive hell-bent on blowing up the world, security pushes me through, and along with the half-dozen other insomniacs at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, I line up for my version of a McBreakfast – a large coffee, extra cream. We make good time to Philly, which on balance is good for those with connecting flights. But it makes me wonder: What law is it that says if your ticket shows you’ve got 55 minutes to connect with your next flight, you will arrive 20 minutes late at a gate at the other end of the terminal; but if you’ve got a three-hour layover, your plane catches a tailwind and you’re in 15 minutes early? Whatever law it is, it has found me today: Instead of having all the time in the world, I now have all the time in the world with an extra quarter hour tacked on. Continue reading →

On the Road Again

What is that noise?

What it is, is Mick belting “wild horses couldn’t drag me away” into my eardrums at a decibel level set to wake the dead. I bolt upright and my feet hit the floor. The musical equivalent of a cold shower. When it’s that loud, my feet are conditioned to hit the floor and ask questions later. So far the feet have done their job. The next job is to locate the volume button and kill it. The clock says 3:45. What kind of ungodly hour is this? Continue reading →