Eric Clapton - 24 Nights
Performance
Production
|
Eric Clapton - 24 Nights
Performance
|
|
Sometime between 1990 and 1991 guitar legend Eric Clapton sold out a record-setting string of 24 consecutive concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England. Clapton varied these shows using a combination of four-piece rock bands, six-piece blues bands, nine-piece pop bands, as well as a full orchestra. Each of these shows were considerably different in style and attitude, and each were briefly captured on this DVD. 24 Nights features a total of 13 songs - three each featuring the four-piece, six-piece, and orchestra accompanied bands, and four songs featuring the nine-piece band. This is a ridiculously short amount of songs considering the incredible volume of material that was performed over these 24 nights. It is understandable that the original VHS tape was limited to this amount, but surely the DVD could have been expanded to include additional material from this monumental event, which I'm sure must be out there somewhere. This DVD begs for re-packaging into a two disk set, with additional songs, interviews, tour footage, and a new DTS 5.1 mix. Clapton has released more than his fair share of DVD concerts during the last decade, so I guess I'll cut him a little slack for now. The DVD begins with three songs featuring the four-piece band, and they stick mostly with Clapton's heavier Cream material. The first song, "Running On Faith", is not one of these, however, as it is from Clapton's Journeyman album, which was released the year before these concerts began. It didn't take long for my patience to be tested as the director insisted upon overusing the slow-motion, overlapping transitions between camera shots, which were completely distracting from the performance. To top this off, he felt it was necessary to mix in plenty of nice black and white shots of Clapton performing, as if this brilliant artistic endeavor is better than just SHOWING THE FRIGGING CONCERT! Well, hearing "White Room" and "Sunshine Of Your Love" back-to-back certainly got me in a better mood. My only question was, where in the hell is "Badge"!? Wheeeere is my Badge? It was certainly one of the highlights of the 24 Nights album, and would have been the same here. Was the DVD THAT full? I doubt it, since their was only one audio track and no special features. Anyways, "Sunshine" was especially good, as Clapton turned in a raw and powerful performance that was faithful to the original. It was also cool to see him playing these old Cream songs with that "old-school", long, scraggly-haired, bearded look, and the cigarette permanently attached to the end of his Strat. Now that's rock & roll! The blues band material was next and featured rather boring versions of "Watch Yourself" and "Worried Life Blues". Clapton's concert staple, "Have You Ever Loved A Woman" faired much better, as he slowed down the pace of the song significantly, and dialed up an extremely delicate and clean tone on his guitar. He simply let his incredible touch, and vibrato do the talking, and then ever so gradually increased the distortion to end the song in a more powerful fashion. The great Buddy Guy and Robert Cray played rhythm guitar on this song, but were barely even seen or heard. Such a waste, as they should have been called out to trade licks with the master. This could have been one historical blues jam, but frustratingly never materialized. My favorite part of the DVD was the four songs with the nine-piece band. Since Clapton was touring in support of the Journeyman album, it is represented by five songs on this DVD. Lucky for us, Journeyman was probably the best album Clapton put out during the miserable 1980's, but that in itself doesn't exactly make it a great album. It just has a few great songs and some of his heaviest guitar playing in a long while. "Pretending" was first up, and Clapton's super-phased-out guitar through a whah whah just rocks. Clapton's vocals have continued to improve with age, and they were in fine form here. The best performances of the night were on the two songs about love. "Bad Love" starts of forcefully with that ultra-distorted opening guitar riff, and ends with one of Clapton's best solo's of the night. The song is as slick as Bill Clinton himself, but Eric and the band still made it one of the concert highlights. Actually, "Old Love" was THE highlight of the DVD. Not one of the best songs from the album, but Clapton took it to new heights with his emotional and powerful performance this night. This very extended version featured some of the most stunningly poignant and expressive blues guitar playing I have ever heard, which clearly illuminated why Clapton was once considered the greatest guitarist in the world. The nine-piece band segment was closed with one of the better versions of "Wonderful Tonight" that I have heard. Clapton took it in a much slower, softer direction than the original and it worked well. There was one really annoying section of the song where Katie Kissoon, one of the backing vocalists, was allowed to wail (think of that section in Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig In The Sky") for what seemed like hours. The final three songs featured The National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Michael Kaman, and was my least favorite part of the DVD. Clapton was more nicely groomed and wearing a suite in this segment. "Bell Bottom Blues", one of my favorite Clapton tunes, was completely overwhelmed by the orchestration and the guitar could barely be heard. "Hard Times", the Ray Charles cover from Journeyman, was just not as good as the album version. The definite highlight of this segment was the instrumental "Edge Of Darkness", which was from the soundtrack of a British TV series, which Clapton and Michael Kaman scored. Throughout the entire song Clapton fires off menacing guitar riffs against the ominous strains of violins and cellos which create a dark and bleak landscape that perfectly captures the the nuclear doom and gloom essence of the BBC show. The video on this DVD has the look of an average 1990's VHS tape, which means that it is not very good. The video suffered due to the level of compression required to cram a 90 minute concert, with an uncompressed PCM audio track, on to a single layer disk. Flare, because of the concert lighting, was one of the more noticeable problems, which led to many shots being washed out and lacking detail. The only audio track provided was a PCM stereo mix. Although it sounded excellent, I always prefer the option of having a multichannel surround track to give you that enveloping concert atmosphere, that a stereo track doesn't provide. At least we do get a powerful PCM stereo track instead of the usually feeble sounding Dolby Digital stereo alternative. Overall, this was a satisfying retrospective of Eric Clapton's historic run at the Albert Hall, and showcased the diversity of his songs and styles throughout his long and tumultuous career. I give this one a high seven rating, compared to the low seven I gave One More Car. Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - November 2004 |
|
Technical Details |
|
|
Audio Transfer |
Video Transfer |
|
Set List |
Performers |
|
Running Time: 90 Minutes |
DVD Release Date - March 1999 |