Kenny Loggins - Outside From The Redwoods
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Kenny Loggins - Outside From The Redwoods
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Outside From The Redwoods could not be a more fitting title for this charming, 1993, Kenny Loggins concert at The Shakespeare Festival Glen, in UC Santa Cruz, California. This breathtakingly beautiful little outdoor venue is nestled amongst the giant redwood trees and has a small sloping lawn area, which appears to hold only a few hundred people. The intimacy and charm of this performance cannot be understated. Loggins and his band perform acoustic arrangements of 14 of his best songs, both old and new. Many of the songs were performed with alternate arrangements, which make some of them almost unrecognizable from their original versions. The video begins in an unusual manner, with Kenny walking alone amongst the redwoods, strumming his acoustic guitar, as a dedication is played in the background. This soon segues into the concert, which is already partway into his performance of "Conviction Of The Heart". This initial close-up shot of Kenny singing soon pans around to show the entire stage from a rear-side view, which is where you first get a glimpse of this stunning setting. "Conviction Of The Heart" is a wonderful song from Loggins' excellent 1991 album Leap Of Faith, which showcases his amazing vocals, as well as some beautiful harmony vocals. Michael McDonald makes a guest appearance during the next song, "What A Fool Believes", the song he co-wrote with Loggins for The Doobie Brothers Minute By Minute album. The new-agey, acoustic version of this song made it sound like "What A Fool Believes", in name only. "Your Mama Don't Dance" was a wild and rockin' version that featured Howard Levy on harmonica. The show slowed down a pace next as Kenny described his recent children's album called Return To Pooh Corner, an album based on the adventures of Winnie The Pooh. He explains how there are hardly any good children's albums that parents can enjoy along with their kids. If the title track of this album, which he played next, is any indication of the quality of the rest of the album, I'd definitely consider picking it up.....for my daughter, of course. "Return To Pooh Corner" was a charming little song with some nice finger-picked acoustic guitar accompaniment from Kenny. Can we really like this and Black Sabbath at the same time? Of course we can. There is a lot of casual conversation between the audience and Kenny, and he evens fields some questions from some audience members between songs. The topics are usually environmental, peace & love, save the whales, save the planet type stuff, and Kenny and most of his audience are obviously PETA/Greenpeace/Al Gore loving lunatics, but once again it was all charming, and good for a chuckle. When it got to the point of a pregnant women asking Kenny how they are supposed to teach their babies to save the environment, that was when I had to yell the title of Laura Ingrams' fine book Shut Up And Sing, at Mr. Loggins. Luckily the Q&A session was brief and they quickly returned to the performance with an outstanding version of "If You Believe", which featured a gospel choir. Praise the Lord! Loggins' band, or should I say orchestra, featured 14 musicians and singers, not including himself and the guest performers. With this many performers they were able to produce an exceptionally full and enriching acoustic sound, and also enabled them to play around with the song's arrangements significantly. "This Is It", the amazing song that first turned me on to Kenny Loggins in the 70's, was barely recognizable as it was performed in a rhythmic, bluesy, acoustic version that featured some accordion and harmonica playing, of all things. I was not all that fond of this particular reworking. "Love Will Follow" was a pretty little duet with Shanice that featured some nice vibes playing. This performance reminded me of a Peaches and Herb song for some reason, not that that is a bad thing. Or is it. Loggins even tapped into a couple of his mega-hit movie soundtrack songs, the first being "Footloose", which was turned into a sort of "swamp boogie" version, as Kenny himself put it. "I'm Alright" was also given the Louisiana swamp music treatment with accordion, harmonica, slide guitar, and tons of percussion. This was actually an outstanding version that outshined the original. The production quality of this DVD was outstanding. The Dolby digital 5.1 surround beautifully captured the warm acoustics of this wonderful outdoor venue. The rear surrounds were used aggressively to project crowd noise and several of the instruments, along with the usual live ambience. For as many different musicians that were up on that stage playing, the instrument separation was excellent. The video looked stunning, as the colors of the outdoor scenery, as well as the stage show, were captured beautifully. The picture was predominantly clear and sharp, and the camera work was unobtrusive enough to make you feel as though you were sitting up on that little hill. The biggest disappointment of this DVD was the non-inclusion of "Celebrate Me Home" and "Angry Eyes", both of which were included on the album version of this concert. These are two of Loggins' best songs, and I can't imagine why they were left off of this 80 minute DVD recording. I would now like to see Loggins' in more of a traditional concert setting, performing more faithful, electric versions of his older material, along with some of the Loggins and Messina classics. Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - July 2004 |
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Running Time: 80 Minutes |
DVD Release Date - April 1998 |