According to "Elmore Magazine"s Mike Jurkovic, when "It's Too Late To Stop Now" was first released in 1974, "everyone—and I do mean everyone—tripped over themselves to hail the two-LP set as one of the greatest live renderings of the rock era." Reviewing the album in "Creem", Robert Christgau hailed it as Morrison's best since "Moondance" (1970) while writing, "Songs that wore poorly or were just lame in the first place have more force and tightness here than in their studio versions". Ken Emerson was somewhat less impressed in "Rolling Stone": "On "It's Too Late" Morrison's voice is in fine form, but much else is not...The other musicians, most of whom have played with Morrison many times before, never detract, but Morrison could be better served...But the power of Morrison's vocals overcomes these drawbacks." At the end of 1974, "It's Too Late to Stop Now" was voted the 20th best album of the year in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics, published by "The Village Voice". Ellen Willis, Greil Marcus, and Christgau ranked it 2nd, 6th, and 18th, respectively, in their ballots for the poll.