I must say, it is a great time to be a music lover. While the recording industry overall is in the doldrums, especially CD sales, the advent of high definition and the lossless audio codecs supported by Blu-ray really provide for the first time, the ability to bring the complete live concert experience into the home via the home theater. Fortunately, we are seeing more and more classic artists taking advantage of all the benefits that the Blu-ray disc format brings to the table both visually and sonically. The latest example is the John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers and Friends Blu-ray release featuring Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Chris Barber from Eagle Rock Entertainment, which is a real crowd pleaser.
Concert
If you are a fan of the Blues and in particular, the British brand of Blues from the 1960′s, this is the release for you. The release features the 70th Birthday concert of British blues pioneer John Mayall recorded in Liverpool, England on July 20, 2003( and was originally released on DVD on December 9, 2003), as part of a fundraising event for Unite for Unicef, to raise awareness and generate funds to end child exploitation.
The concert features John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers featuring his then current line-up of guitarist Buddy Whittington, organist Tom Canning, bassist Hank Van Sickle and drummer Joe Yuele. For this event, he was joined by former Bluesbreakers band members Mick Taylor and Eric Clapton as well as veteran trombonist Chris Barber. Quite simply, this concert simply cooks, with hard driving Blues at its finest with a stellar set featuring Eric Clapton which is the highlight of the concert.
The concert features a total of 16 tracks consisting of Southside Story, Kids Got the Blues, Dirty Water, Somebody Acting Like a Child, Blues for The Lost Days, Walking on Sunset, Oh, Pretty Woman, No Big Hurry, Please Mr. Lofton, Hideaway, All Your Love, Have You Heard, Hoochie Coochie Man, I’m Torn Down, It Ain’t Right and Talk To Your Daughter. The extras also feature three bonus tracks not included with the original DVD including Grits Ain’t Groceries and Jacksboro HIghway featuring the current Bluesbreakers line-up sans John Mayall and California, featuring the entire band, John Mayall, Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Chris Barber. It doesn’t get much better than this folks! Stellar performances of some great heard driving Blues. Highly Recommended.
Video
Fans of this type of music and these players in particular will be thrilled with the video quality on this release. The video presentation features deep and inky blacks and well saturated and natural looking colors. Detail is excellent as is the level of overall clarity. The result is a highly detailed and sharp looking picture with excellent depth and three dimensionality. Shadow detail is top notch as well. Video noise which has plagued some recent releases, is almost non existent here.
The video on this release places you right in the tent at he performance that night, giving you a real glimpse of what it was like being at the concert that night. While the overall level of sharpness and clarity is excellent, some of the crowd shots appears to have been filmed in widescreen standard definition and are therefore a good bit softer than the rest of the presentation. However, that softness does not effect any of the actual performance video, just shots of the crowd, which I might add, really seems to be enjoying the show. Great stuff!
Audio
While I loved the video presentation, I found the audio to be even better. While a fine 48 kHz LCPM stereo is included, I did most of my listening with the lossless 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio track. This is one rockin’ track, placing you right in the front row. The track features excellent dynamics and balls to the wall bass response with a deep pulsating bass line that really drives the music along with the the beautifully recorded drum work by drummer Joe Yuele. If this music and the sonics here don’t get your feet a tappin’, you don’t have a pulse.
The overall sound is smooth and open with excellent transparency and imaging. The presentation of the instruments across the front of the sound field is spot on, matching the placement of the musicians in the video perfectly. The guitars, especially that of Eric Clapton have that biting edge that you experience at a live performance, but without sounding overly hard or shrill in any way. The surrounds are actively engaged throughout the concert, providing an excellent sense of ambiance, placing you in the venue with the rest of the audience. I really can’t image this concert being recorded and presented any better than it is on this release. Very well done.
Special Features
As noted above, there are three extra concert tracks included with the extras, all encoded with DTS HD Master Audio. The first two, Grits Ain’t Groceries and Jacksboro Highway feature the members of the Bluesbreakers without John Mayall. The final track, California, features all of the musicians who performed in the concert and is the best of the three extra tracks. Also included with the extras is an interview with John Mayall presented in widescreen standard definition where he discusses his musical career.
Final Thoughts
If you are a fan of John Mayall, Mick Taylor and Eric Clapton and the Blues in general, this is the release for you. This Blu-ray release features an excellent video presentation with stellar audio that I am sure offers a significant upgrade over the prior DVD release. Highly recommended.
