It's Too Late To Stop Now: Live (2CD) | 
| Artist: Van Morrison
Label: Polydor / Umgd
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $13.09
You Save: $6.89 (34%)
New (54) Used (13) from $10.75
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 1811
Format: Extra Tracks, Live, Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 001064302
UPC: 600753054550
EAN: 0600753054550
ASIN: B0010DJ1K6
Release Date: January 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new Item. CD, DVD, Book, VHS more than 400 000 titles to choose from. ALL days Low Price !
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | Ain't Nothin' You Can Do | | • | Warmlove | | • | Into The Mystic | | • | These Dreams Of You | | • | I Believe To My Soul | | • | I've Been Working | | • | Help Me | | • | Wild Children | | • | Domino | | • | I Just Want To Make Love To You |
Disc 2
| • | Bring It On Home To Me | | • | Saint Dominic's Preview | | • | Take Your Hands Out | | • | Listen To The Lion | | • | Here Comes The Night | | • | Gloria | | • | Caravan | | • | Cyprus Avenue | | • | Brown Eyed Girl |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 "Let Me Tell You About My Baby... Makes Me Feel Alright..." AND SO DOES THIS CD MATE!! March 9, 2008
Mark Barry at Revival Records, Berwick Street (London, UK)
31 out of 32 found this review helpful
Taking its title from a lyric at the end of "Into The Mystic" on 1970's "Moondance", Van Morrison's 2LP live set "It's Too Late To Stop Now" was released in early 1974. It's always been a fan favourite and was equally championed by critics the world over at the time. It has even been muted by some as one of the best live albums ever made. Well, on hearing it again after all these years on this superb-sounding 2008 remaster, it's easy to see why everyone went nuts for it then and now - it's a magical body of work - and with this sonic upgrade, to my ears, it's never sounded better.
Produced by Van and Warner Brothers resident production genius Ted Templeman, it was recorded in the Troubadour in Los Angeles, the Civic in Santa Monica (both in California) and the beloved and much missed Rainbow Theatre in London. His super tight house band "The Caledonia Soul Orchestra" consisted of JEFF LABES on Piano & Organ, JOHN PLATANIA on Guitar, DAVID HAYES on Bass, JACK SCHROER and BILL ATWOOD on Sax and Trumpet with DAHAUD SHAAR pounding away on Drums. The String section featured NATHAN RUBIN, TIM KOVATCH, TOM HALPIN, NANCY ELLIS and TERRY ADAMS.
Disc One opens the proceedings with a cracking version of Bobby Bland's "Ain't Nothin' You Can Do". There are quite a few covers on the album and they sit perfectly alongside his own compositions making it a far more varied listen. There's a slick version of "I Believe To My Soul" by Ray Charles, "Help Me" by Sonny Boy Williamson (Willie Dixon writer), "I Just Want To Make Love To You" by Muddy Waters (again Willie Dixon writer), "Bring It On Home To Me" by Sam Cooke and "Take Your Hands Out Of My Pocket" by Sonny Boy Williamson. Them classics "Here Comes The Night" and "Gloria" are superlative too - especially the barnstorming "Gloria with "it's gonna be alright..." and the crowd bashing their hands together as hard as they can! The album is full of great moments, the James Brown funky tightness of "I've Been Working" with the brass, piano and guitar all playing up an absolute storm; the beautiful other worldly Tim Buckley meandering feel to the soulful nine minutes of "Listen To The Lion" and the infectious joy of the crowd to the opening guitar flicks of "Domino".
Some reviewers have said they found the sound `thinny' - I don't. To me it's warmer and more revealing than it's ever been and I'm digging this fab set so much more for it. The original master tapes have been 96K/24 Bit digitally remastered by Tim Young at Metropolis Mastering in London and the sound is GORGEOUS - really amazing. The supposedly `upgraded' booklet isn't gorgeous, however - it's very disappointing. As the original album gatefold contained a few colour shots of Van and the band, then that's all we get here - nothing else - no lyrics, no history of where the album fits in, no new liner notes, no new photographs of the tour, the band, the audiences etc. Could have done better lads. And speaking of short change, while all the other 6 releases in this reissue campaign have had two bonus tracks each, here the original 16-track 2LP set is given only one bonus cut, a previously unreleased version of "Brown Eyed Girl". It's short, but it's in keeping with the sound of the other tracks and admittedly it's excellent. Nice to hear it after all these years. But across three concerts, surely there was more?? Couldn't this have been a DELUXE 3CD EDITION? Now how special would that have been!
To sum up then - despite a few minor presentation niggles, this is still a bona fide 5-star masterpiece given a SUPERB REMASTER and I for one am loving every second of it. Buy with confidence.
PS:
30 Van Morrison albums are re-issued in remastered form throughout 2008 and into early 2009. Each title contains an upgraded booklet; previously unreleased bonus tracks and all will be at mid-price. The releases are in 4 batches as follows:
28 January 2008 (7 titles)
Tupelo Honey (1971), It's Too Late To Stop Now (2 CD Live Set) (1974),
Wavelenght (1979), Into The Music (1979), A Sense Of Wonder (1985),
Avalon Sunset (1989) and Back On Top (1999)
(see SEPARATE REVIEWS for all 7)
30 June 2008 UK/1 & 8 July 2008 USA (8 titles)
Veedon Fleece (1974), Common One (1980), Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart (1983), Live At The Grand Opera House, Belfast (1984), No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986), Enlightenment (1990), A Night In San Francisco (2CD Live Set) (1994) and The Healing Game (1997)
(see also SEPARATE REVIEWS for "Veedon Fleece", "Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart", "Enlightenment", the live 2CD set "A Night In San Francisco", "Common One" and "No Guru, No Method, No Teacher")
September 2008 (7 titles)
Saint Dominic's Preview (1972), A Period Of Transition (1977), Beautiful Vision (1982), Poetic Champions Compose (1987), Hymns To The Silence (2CD Studio Set) (1991), How Long Has This Been Going On (Live At Ronnie Scott's) (1995) and Tell Me Something - The Songs Of Mose Allison (1996)
January 2009 (8 titles)
Hard Nose The Highway (1973), Irish Heartbeat (with The Chieftains) (1988),
Too Long In Exile (1993), Days Like This (1995), The Story Of Them (2CD Set) (1999), The Skiffle Sessions - Live In Belfast (with Lonnie Donegan & Chris Barber) (2000), Down The Road (2002) and What's Wrong With This Picture? (2003)
PPS:
Those hoping to see desperately needed sonic upgrades of his 1st and 2nd album masterpieces on Warner Bothers "Astral Weeks" (1968) and "Moondance" (1970) or even "His Band & The Street Choir" (late 1970) will be disappointed to hear that they're NOT in this re-issue campaign - on either side of the pond. "Astral Weeks" and "Moondance" in particular have both been languishing around on crappy-sounding non-remastered CDs for over 20 years now and they're glaringly obvious omissions in this supposedly 'extensive' re-issue campaign. These universally recognized masterpieces have long deserved 2CD DELUXE EDITION treatment (some tracks in remastered form are available across the 3 volumes of "Best Of"). However, I've recently been informed by a good source that all 3 are NOW AVAILABLE since June 2008 in JAPAN in RHINO REMASTERED form. See the excellent Japanese site CDJAPAN.CO.JP for details (worded in English).
Great Expanded, Remastered Version Of Van Morrison's Classic Live Album January 29, 2008
The Footpath Cowboy (Kingston, NY United States)
20 out of 36 found this review helpful
The new expanded, remastered version of Van Morrison's classic live album IT'S TOO LATE TO STOP NOW is absolutely wonderful. Every song on here is a stone-cold classic, and at one point, Morrison hushes the entire theater and then lets out a spontaneous exhortation of spirit. This album had been reissued before, but this is the first time anyone actually managed to capture the full scope of what the audience heard that night. This is a great live album by an artist who, in more recent years, became notorious for not giving the audience what it wants, a fact made obvious when I got spoken to by a staff person at my old program for asking a young woman who was extremely shy to begin with for a dance to Morrison's 1994 live CD A NIGHT IN SAN FRANCISCO. It turns out the staff member was right, because the later album turned Morrison's classics into songs that no one really recognized, but this CD shows that, in the 70s, Morrison still obviously cared about both his audience AND himself.
 THE EMPEROR'S NEW, AND ONLY PARTIALLY-REMASTERED, CLOTHING March 30, 2008
BOB (LOS ANGELES, CA)
19 out of 24 found this review helpful
Polygram ceased production of its portion of Van-The-Man's catalog, resulting in 29 titles, two-thirds of his entire recorded output, remaining frustratingly unavailable for the past several years. Even more regrettably, sixteen of those OOP titles had been fabulously remastered and re-released in 1998. Accordingly, prices for these had soared, especially for the remastered titles.
Then, in late 2007, The Announcement! All 29 OOP titles would be re-released in 2008! With new remastering! Extra tracks! Even mini-sleeve editions from Japan!
Well, fellow audiophiles and mini-sleeve aficionados, the hyperbole is unfortunately only half-true: Those 16 1998 remastered titles? Except for the bonus tracks, the 2008 re-releases are the EXACT same remasters, right down to the `98 silkscreen scheme on each disc, and the `98 booklets, with only minimally text-modified for the bonus material and production credits.
The `98 mastering work was performed by Ian Cooper at Metropolis Mastering in London. The `08 booklets credit another Metropolis engineer, Tim Young, for the new editions. However, the only effort Mr. Young expended on the sixteen 1998 titles was to sonically match the minute bonus content to the pre-existing `98 mastering.
So, in this first 7-CD set (Tupelo Honey, It's Too Late To Stop Now, Wavelength, Into The Music, A Sense Of Wonder, Avalon Sunset and Back On Top) of four 2008 scheduled catalog re-releases, only Avalon Sunset and Back On Top have been newly-remastered. As the Japan `sleeve version of Back On Top was delayed until April, I haven't had the opportunity to A/B that disc. The result of remastering the 20-year-old Avalon Sunset could certainly be more pronounced than redoing 1999's Back On Top, so that remains to be quantified. The Japanese also floated something called "high-quality SHM-CD format" on the mini-sleeve versions (which are always my CD's of choice), but I can't discern any audible improvement in that department, either.
(Although I have referred to my A/B set-up in other Amazon reviews, due to the subject matter herein, I should probably reiterate that my comparisons are made on two Sony XA7 transports, simultaneously running into a Camelot Uther DAC via matching Acoustic Zen coax cables, and monitored thru Sennheiser 590's).
This same existing-remaster+bonus-tracks scenario will apply for the other 1998-remastered titles to be released later this year: Saint Dominic's Preview, Hard Nose Down The Highway, Veedon Fleece, Period Of Transition, Beautiful Vision, Inarticulate Speech, Common One, Live/Belfast, No Guru, Poetic Champions Compose and Irish Heartbeat.
Don't get me wrong, these all sound glorious. Yes, it is wonderful to have these fantastic recordings readily available once more, and again, yes, it's great to finally have a newly-remastered Avalon Sunset. By the end of 2008, it will also be especially joyous to own the other 13 never-before remastered titles.
However, speaking for myself, who already owned all the remastered `98's, the mastering sleight-of-hand was NOT appreciated, especially at mini-sleeve premium prices. There is also Polygram's deplorable Enron-like tactic of taking the entire series out of production for an extended period of time to create demand, years longer than just the clearing of the older releases in the retail channel via sell-off would have required. As a retailer acquaintance once sagely observed: "Nobody wants to buy anything until it's deleted", a lesson the financially-struggling Universal Music Group (Polygram's odious parent) is obviously applying in spades here. The record labels bemoan the loss of CD sales, but it is exactly this kind of manipulative marketing ka-ka that provides impetus to consumer alienation.
So, if like me, you already owned the `98's, the only decision in reinvesting in the `08's are the a.) meager-two-tracks-per-disc "bonus" material, and b.) to-buy-or-not-to-buy the more expensive Japan `sleeve editions. The bonus tracks could have been released as a separate set (A "Philosopher's Stone Volume 2", perhaps?), but then, of course, Polygram wouldn't net the possible re-sale of 16 additional CD's per VanFan.
As for the desirability of the bonus tracks themselves, I'll leave it to others to opine on whether the return on such a substantial reinvestment is either a worthwhile, or foolhardy, expense.
WHAT IS A JAPAN "MINI-LP-SLEEVE" CD?
Have you ever lamented the loss of one of the 20th Century's great art forms, the 12" vinyl LP jacket? Then "mini-LP-sleeve" CD's may be for you.
Mini-sleeve CDs are manufactured in Japan under license. The disc is packaged inside a 13.5MM X 13.5MM cardboard-sleeve, precision-miniature replica of the original classic vinyl-LP album. Also, everything else packaged with the original LP is precisely replicated and included, such as gatefolds, booklets, lyric sheets, posters, printed LP sleeves, stickers, embosses, special LP cover paper/inks/textures and die cuts. An English-language lyric sheet is also included, even if the original LP did not have printed lyrics.
Then, there's the sonic quality: Often (but not always), mini-sleeves have Japan-dedicated remastering (20-Bit, 24-Bit, DSD, K2 or K2HD, and/or HDCD), and can often (but not always) be superior to the audio on the same title anywhere else in the world. There also may be bonus tracks unavailable elsewhere.
Each Japan mini-sleeve has an "OBI" ("oh-bee"), a Japan-language promotional strip. The OBI often also lists the original album's release date, the Japan street date of that particular disc, the catalog number, and mastering info. Bonus tracks are always only listed on the OBI, maintaining the integrity of the original LP artwork.
The enthusiasm of mini-sleeve collecting must be tempered, however, with avoiding fake copies of Japan `sleeves manufactured in Russia and distributed throughout the world, primarily on eBay. They are inferior in quality, worthless in collectable value, a total waste of money, and should be avoided at all costs.
Also, there are older Japan mini-sleeve releases that have been supplanted with newer ones, usually with updated audio (such as JVC-Japan replacing older K2-mastered titles with new K2HD mastered releases).
All mini-sleeve releases are limited edition, but re-pressings/re-issues are becoming more common with some of the Japanese companies (but, again, not always). Mini-sleeve collecting can get expensive quickly, so, if you're a novice, it is highly advisable to seek the advice of an experienced `sleeve collector!
Near Perfect February 23, 2008
Annette Franzen (Annette in DC)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
I don't usually like live albums because I find the applause and screaming from the audience distracting. However, this CD is so good that even that didn't ruin it for me. This album is near perfect in every respect and if I could live my life over, I would be at this 1973 concert to see Van at his very best.
Must Hear Van!!!!!! March 1, 2008
James M. Fox (Albany,NY)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I first purchased this on vinyl about 15 yrs.ago, listened to it a few times and put it away to collect dust. Little did I realize what a gem this live recording of Van was.It was just re-released on cd ,I bought it and have not been able to stop listening to it for a month.This is definitely one of Vans best live performances.The band is one of the best bands he has ever recorded with.This is Van in his prime and no Van CD collection would be complete without it. Look for other Van re-releases 28 in all with extra tracks,also a new dvd in april.
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