“The Black Crowes: Warpaint Live” Blu-ray Review
Just weeks after releasing the album Warpaint, The Black Crowes performed the album in its entirety (with a few songs from their older albums toward the end of the concert) live in March of 2008. While not an unprecedented move, performing an album so early after its release hardly allows the fan base to acclimate to it and as such the concert wasn’t as emotionally charged as it could have been. Nevertheless, Eagle Rock Entertainment has brought the concert in its entirety to Blu-ray, featuring all seventeen songs from the March 20th concert.
Synopsis
The Black Crowes are one of the all-time great live rock bands. Their shows are legendary and regularly sell out in record time wherever in the world they play. This new live BRD was filmed on March 20, 2008 at the Wiltern in Los Angeles during the tour in support of their critically acclaimed new studio album “Warpaint”. The concert features live versions of the whole of the “Warpaint” album plus a mixture of previously unreleased cover versions and some of their own classics.
It’s key to keep the idea that the concert came just weeks after the album’s release, as at first you think you’re watching a concert of some of the mellowest fans in the world. Then it takes an upswing at the end and they go crazy when the more “recognizable” songs kick in and you have to wonder whether the fans just didn’t like the new material or if they just didn’t know it enough to sing along with it.
You’d have to look at more recent concerts of The Black Crowes to make that decision, but for what its’ worth here the concert itself is a pretty entertaining ride. I’m not familiar with the band’s music and so I can only review what I heard from this concert, but it was all fairly interesting concerts. Some of the songs seemed to blend into one another for me, but almost all new music to my ears does that. The older material did set itself apart a bit more, if only because it had an older “sound” to it…but, again, fans are going to be the ones doing most of the decision making about the differences in quality.
For what it’s worth it’s an entertaining concert, but, again, you’d have to be a fan to really appreciate it. And being a fan you’ll no doubt pick out some of your favorite songs from the following set list:
01) Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution
02) Walk Believer Walk
03) Oh Josephine
04) Evergreen
05) We Who See The Deep
06) Locust Street
07) Movin’ On Down The Line
08) Wounded Bird
09) God’s Got It
10) There’s Gold In Them Hills
11) Whoa Mule
12) Poor Elijah – Tribute To Johnson
13) Darling Of The Underground Press
14) Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye
15) Don’t Know Why
16) Torn And Frayed
17) Hey Grandma
Overall a solid concert and Recommended for fans…but I’ll be completely honest and say I don’t really know what’s considered “good” The Black Crowes music, so that may be a bad recommendation. You’ll just have to check it out for yourself.
The Blu-ray
Eagle Rock Entertainment has brought Warpaint to Blu-ray in a standard Elite Blu-ray case. The doublesided insert boasts a listing of the songs played as well as a large crowd shot from the concert on the interior of the package. Disc art is a giant crows head and a twelve page booklet is included that has some comments, another set list printing and the band information. There are also images from the concert inside the booklet as well.
Video arrives in an AVC encoded 1080i transfer and, as expected for a modern production, looks good. There’s a bit of compression and softness to the picture but overall it’s a solid image. It’s the audio you’ll be paying attention to anyway with a concert and as such the three variations here all represent the audio beautifully: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, LPCM 2.0. Once again the LPCM is the “loudest” of the three and if you have a decent A/V receiver you may find this one the best to listen to for volumes sake, but it’s the DTS-HD that has the most powerful overall mix. Plenty of bass as well as surround work, some of the actual singing is a bit faint in the center channel, but overall it’s a solid outing.
Unfortunately there are no extras (aside from that booklet), so you’ll be watching only the concert and going home. Kind of like if you were to actually have attended it!
Overall a release for fans, but nothing more.
The Black Crowes – Warpaint Live is now available on Blu-ray.