Concerts

Woodstock - 3 Days of Peace & Music (The Director's Cut)

The three-day Woodstock music festival in 1969 was the pivotal event of the 1960s peace movement, and this landmark concert film is the definitive record of that milestone of rock & roll history. It's more than a chronicle of the hippie movement, however; this is a film of genuine historical and social importance, capturing the spirit of America in transition, when the Vietnam War was at its peak and antiwar protest was fully expressed through the liberating music of the time. With a brilliant crew at his disposal (including a young editor named Martin Scorsese), director Michael Wadleigh worked with over 300 hours of footage to create his original 225-minute director's cut, which was cut by 40 minutes for the film's release in 1970. Eight previously edited segments were restored in 1994, and the original director's cut of Woodstock is now the version most commonly available on videotape and DVD.

The film deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and it's still a stunning achievement. Abundant footage taken among the massive crowd ("half a million strong") expresses the human heart of the event, from skinny-dipping hippies to accidental overdoses, to unpredictable weather, midconcert childbirth, and the thoughtful (or just plain rambling) reflections of the festive participants. Then, of course, there is the music--a nonstop parade of rock & roll from the greatest performers of the period, including Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Canned Heat, The Who, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Ten Years After, Sly & The Family Stone, Santana, and many more. Watching this ambitious film, as the saying goes, is the next best thing to being there--it's a time-travel journey to that once-in-a-lifetime event. --Jeff Shannon

3 days. 3-million people. And memories to last a lifetime.Year: 1970Director: Michael WadleighStarring: Jimi Hendrix, Richie Havens, The Who, Crosby, Stills & Nash, much more

John Denver - The Wildlife Concert

Self-professed "singer of the American West" John Denver shines in this heartfelt, 1995 live concert to benefit the Wildlife Conservation Society. Favorite songs such as "Rocky Mountain High," "Wild Montana Skies," and "Fly Away" are moving and gain fresh perspective from brief comments by Denver. Lesser-known songs like "Eagles and Horses" and "You Say the Battle Is Over" celebrate the spirit of animals and nature while underlining the importance of preservation. Succinct interview clips express Denver's commitment to nature: exploring man's basic hunger for the wild, the dichotomy between the uncultivated and the city, and the power of the individual to effect preservation and change. Striking though brief footage of wild animals like horses, eagles, penguins, and elephants in their natural habitats serve as bookends to the presentation. The Wildlife Concert is a reflective and moving musical celebration of the American West. --Tami Horiuchi

Fleetwood Mac - The Dance

With each passing year bringing another high-profile rock reunion, prompted as often by balloon mortgage payments as any real artistic hunger, old fans could be excused for greeting 1997's announcement that the big Mac was back with skepticism: at their commercial zenith, Fleetwood Mac had offered superb transatlantic pop-rock with the added spice of a remarkable back-story, but the band's long decline and underwhelming later personnel shifts didn't bode well.

Such guarded expectations make the musical punch of The Dance all the more impressive, and enable the meticulously produced concert special to genuinely surprise. The band's musicianship--the one constant between the original, late '60s English blues band and its platinum '70s lineup featuring guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks--is in peak form, buttressed by a discreet auxiliary of additional musicians. Even with the hired guns, though, it's the rock-solid rhythm section of founders Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, and Buckingham's impassioned playing that strike sparks. Always a dynamic guitarist, Buckingham brings feverish intensity to both group classics and solo turns such as "Go Insane."

Both familiar hits and new songs (including the solid "Temporary One" and "Bleed to Love Her") further confirm that this isn't a rote exercise--the band sounds fully engaged. Buckingham, Nicks, and the elegant Christine McVie retain their vocal charm (although Nicks has clearly lost her upper register). And the sense of old wounds healed, and older affections acknowledged, gives true poignancy to the set's high mark, a brilliant live version of "Silver Springs," a truly haunting Rumours-era B-side that proves deeply moving. --Sam Sutherland

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble - Live From Austin, Texas

Few guitarists ever mastered the Fender Stratocaster like the late, great Texas bluesman Stevie Ray Vaughan, and this priceless digital video disc collects both of the sizzling appearances that Vaughan and his solid band, Double Trouble, made on the PBS concert series Austin City Limits. Combined to form the most popular program in the show's distinguished history, the concerts were taped in 1983 and 1989; both provide a valuable portrait of Vaughan's astounding artistic development. The performances serve as bookends to Vaughan's brilliant career with Double Trouble, showing (in the words of producer Terry Lickona) a striking contrast between "zero self-confidence" and "pure magic," but in both cases you can see a master at work. Songs include "Pride and Joy," "Texas Flood," "Voodoo Chile," "Cold Shot," and "Riviera Paradise." This great-sounding DVD also includes the posthumous music video "Little Wing," featuring clips of Double Trouble and archival footage of blues greats from the 1920s to the mid-1990s. If you're even a part-time blues fan, Stevie Ray Vaughan: Live from Austin, Texas is a must-have disc. --Jeff Shannon

Neil Diamond - Greatest Hits Live

Roy Orbison - A Black & White Night (DTS)

Few early rockers were more gifted or less honored in their prime than the late Roy Orbison, whose vaulting tenor and vulnerable love songs conjured heartbreak and desire with operatic intensity. This 1987 concert special, originally broadcast on Showtime, came two decades after Orbison had retreated from pop's front lines, yet neither Orbison nor his music coasts on mere nostalgia: in every respect, A Black and White Night survives as a triumphant performance and a superb video production, as well as a first-rate retrospective of Orbison's hits.

Filmed in black and white against the streamlined art deco stage of the since-demolished Coconut Grove in downtown Los Angeles, the concert is buoyed by a remarkable cast of A-list Orbison fans who signed on as his accompanists. Under the direction of producer T-Bone Burnett, the stage band thus includes Jackson Browne, Burnett, Elvis Costello, k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt, J.D. Souther, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, and Jennifer Warnes, along with the rhythm section from Elvis Presley's fabled late '60s and early '70s touring band. That astonishing lineup is all the more noteworthy for the restraint with which they collaborate--it's evident that those superstars came to honor Orbison, not upstage him, resulting in a gratifying cohesion to the performances.

Orbison himself sounds as powerful as ever, his soaring falsetto cresting as dramatically as it did on the studio versions of the hits that inevitably dominate. Those songs meanwhile confirm that his blue chip admiration society came as much for the caliber of his writing as for his ravishing voice: if he remains best known for the jaunty come-on of "Pretty Woman," Orbison was first and foremost a rock balladeer, capable of bringing lumps to our throats with such classics as "Crying" and "Only the Lonely," or conjuring romantic trances through such gentle charmers as "Dream Baby." On this night, he handled all of them with fervor and finesse. --Sam Sutherland

Few early rockers were more gifted or less honored in their prime than the late Roy Orbison, whose vaulting tenor and vulnerable love songs conjured heartbreak and desire with operatic intensity. This 1987 concert special, originally broadcast on Showtime, came two decades after Orbison had retreated from pop's front lines, yet neither Orbison nor his music coasts on mere nostalgia: in every respect, A Black and White Night survives as a triumphant performance and a superb video production, as well as a first-rate retrospective of Orbison's hits.

Filmed in black and white against the streamlined art deco stage of the since-demolished Coconut Grove in downtown Los Angeles, the concert is buoyed by a remarkable cast of A-list Orbison fans who signed on as his accompanists. Under the direction of producer T-Bone Burnett, the stage band thus includes Jackson Browne, Burnett, Elvis Costello, k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt, J.D. Souther, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, and Jennifer Warnes, along with the rhythm section from Elvis Presley's fabled late '60s and early '70s touring band. That astonishing lineup is all the more noteworthy for the restraint with which they collaborate--it's evident that those superstars came to honor Orbison, not upstage him, resulting in a gratifying cohesion to the performances.

Orbison himself sounds as powerful as ever, his soaring falsetto cresting as dramatically as it did on the studio versions of the hits that inevitably dominate. Those songs meanwhile confirm that his blue chip admiration society came as much for the caliber of his writing as for his ravishing voice: if he remains best known for the jaunty come-on of "Pretty Woman," Orbison was first and foremost a rock balladeer, capable of bringing lumps to our throats with such classics as "Crying" and "Only the Lonely," or conjuring romantic trances through such gentle charmers as "Dream Baby." On this night, he handled all of them with fervor and finesse. --Sam Sutherland

Metallica: Year and A Half Parts 1 & 2

Part 1 of A Year and a Half captures the band working in the studio on their Grammy-winning album Metallica and features the videos "Enter Sandman," "The Unforgiven" and "Nothing Else Matters." Part 2 covers the saga of Metallica on tour as it unfolds through concert performances, jam sessions and daily adventures in locker rooms, hotel rooms and arenas around the world.

Tina Turner - One Last Time: Live in Concert

Shot at Wembley Stadium during Tina's "Twenty Four Seven Millennium Tour 2000," Tina Turner's usual powerful performance makes this, her final stadium tour, an event never to be forgotten. Blasting out hit after hit from her amazing four-decade career, Tina proves herself once again to be... simply the best. Though Tina will give her famous dancing shoes a rest, this title will still stand as a repeatable, collectable performance experience to her millions of fans. 120 minutes.

Yes - Yessongs

Yes was on tour to promote the recent release of Close to the Edge when this energetic performance was captured on 16-millimeter film in London's Rainbow Theatre in December 1972. Although this DVD was mastered from a ragged print (with plenty of scratches evident throughout), this is actually the better of the two Yes discs available (the other--Live in Philadelphia--has an even murkier transfer from videotape), with marginally better sound quality and a 75-minute performance that finds the band at the height of their "early years" popularity. The lineup is the same as that of the 1979 performance in Philadelphia (Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White, Rick Wakeman), but this concert is by a much younger, much more ambitious band that was still forging its formidable prog-rock identity. As a result this is the more valuable of the two Yes performances on DVD--a tighter, sharper, more satisfying look at the band at the peak of their creativity. It's also worth noting that they allowed room for solo improvisations (such as Howe's playful rendition of "The Clap" and Wakeman's excerpts from "The Six Wives of Henry VIII"), but as a group they remained intimately faithful to their studio recordings. And although even die-hard fans will grumble about the film's murky quality (which DVD can do nothing to improve), camera access was adequate for this show and each member of the band is given adequate screen time to demonstrate his instrumental virtuosity--particularly Howe, whose guitar work here is nothing short of amazing. While it's unfortunate that both DVDs featuring live Yes music leave much to be desired, this disc is definitely worth owning if you've ever wanted to see the giants of '70s prog-rock at the top of their game. --Jeff Shannon

Experience the pure power of Yes on their 1973 world tour, featuring the classic lineup of Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman and Alan White. London's Rainbow Theatre reverberates with the energy of the legendary rock group as they perform many of their signature mood pieces from the "Fragile" and "Close to the Edge" albums. You haven't seen this classic rock group until you see them live. Songs: Your Move/I've Seen All Good People, The Clap, And You and I, Close to the Edge, The Six Wives of Henry VIII [excerpt], Roundabout, Yours is No Disgrace, Starship Trooper [excerpt].

Yanni - Tribute

Exotic locales and famous monuments! Adagios and waltzes! Spectacle and bombast! A didgeridoo and an orchestra too! Yanni's amazing hair!! All this and much more make Tribute a feast sure to be eagerly devoured by the Greek composer-keyboardist's legions of fans--and it's not hard to understand why, as it is an impressive achievement. The DVD chronicles Yanni's 1997 concerts at India's Taj Mahal (the first concert staged there) and Beijing's Forbidden City (the first-ever performance there by a Western artist), and these splendid settings are certainly shown to good effect throughout this well-directed, great-sounding program. As for the music, well, that's all a matter of taste; what might be schlocky to one person will be beautiful and majestic to another. But regardless of one's musical leanings, no one can dispute that the 90-minute concert, combining numbers from both locations, provides a healthy and representative dose of Yanni's New Age-cum-classical-cum-world music sounds, and they are well played by the international cast of nearly 50 musicians and singers (violinist Karen Briggs and guitarist Pedro Eustache acquit themselves especially well among the soloists).

And that's not all, as the DVD is loaded with bonus features. Principal among them is "No Borders, No Boundaries," a beautifully photographed, hourlong film narrated by actor Christopher Plummer; part documentary and part travelogue, it contains musician profiles, Yanni biographical material, some Indian and Chinese history, and information about how the concerts came about. Other features include a lengthy Yanni interview and discography, as well as audio options. In the end, Yanni detractors are unlikely to be converted, but then, they can always put on their Limp Bizkit CDs instead. --Sam Graham