Santana
- Sacred Fire
(Live In Mexico)
Performance 
Production
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Santana
- Sacred Fire
Performance |
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It is kind of weird to think that a lot of people were first introduced to Carlos Santana only after the overwhelming success of his special-guest- filled Supernatural album of 1999. "Hey Bridget, have you heard the cool new guitarist that plays on the new Rob Thomas song? Some Mexican named Carlos, I think." I guess I can't really talk too much, because the "real" Santana fans, I 'm talking about the ones who witnessed his mesmerizing Woodstock performance in 1969, and have followed him passionately ever since, can mock me because my first true Santana experience was seeing them in concert on the Zebop tour back in 1981. As a high school sophomore, that was my first ever live concert, and it is still one of my highlights to this day. I guess that would explain why Zebop is one of my favorite Santana albums, even though it takes a beating from most of the fans and critics. Sacred Fire was recorded over two night's performances in Mexico City, on May 22 & 23, 1993, during Santana's tour in support of the new Milagro album. Carlos dedicated this video to the life of one of his heroes, Mexican labor leader Caesar Chavez, who died only a month before these shows were filmed. This video was first released on VHS back in 1993, and I had been eagerly awaiting its release on DVD, ever since getting my first DVD player. I was, however, disappointed to learn that there was really nothing significant done to make the DVD any more special than the VHS - other than just being a DVD. No 5.1 surround audio options, no widescreen video transfer, no additional song performances, no extras, no booklet, NADA! The only thing it really offered was a good replacement for my worn out VHS copy. Although Sacred Fire is mostly straight concert footage, there is also quite a bit of footage of Carlos playing his guitar at several Mexico City landmarks, which is filmed in a music video fashion, and interspersed throughout most of the song performances. This wasn't as annoyingly intrusive as other concert videos I've suffered through, but why not just offer an alternative option without these interruptions to the performance. The video begins with Carlos introducing "Spirits Dancing In The Flesh", in Spanish, with one of his typical goofy, but charming, spiritual mantras: "...before we begin with the vibration of music, remember, if you take the time to see with the heart and not the mind, we shall see that we are completely surrounded by angels...". Oookay Carlos. This was translated to English by large glowing words that flowed down the screen as he spoke. Soaking in the marvelous "Spirits Dancing In the Flesh" from his 1990 album of the same name, however, was damn-near inspiring enough to make even the best atheist throw reason to the wind and thank the lord for Santana. After the Reggae infused " Esperando" kept the crowd dancing in the aisles, things really heated up in a hurry, as the band broke into back to back classics, "Batuka" and "No One To Depend On", from the fantastic Santana III album. If you are a new fan of Santana and are interested in checking out some of the older stuff, I'd recommend starting there. With Greg Rollie on keyboards and vocals, and a teenage Neal Schon on guitar, before they left to form Journey, the album is an absolute monster. Oh, and what a friggin' trippy album cover! Carlos and the band went on to perform all of the obvious choices - "Black Magic Woman", "Gypsy Queen", "Oye Como Va", "Samba Pa Ti" and they did not disappoint. What was disappointing was that no additional song performances were scrounged up for this DVD. I know damn well that between the two concerts filmed for the original video, Santana probably played about 30 different songs. I've seen them about four times in concert since that '81 show, and they have never played for less than about two and a half hours. This DVD is only 90 minutes, which is not normally a complainable offense, but this time it certainly is. Surprisingly, the album that they were touring in support of, Milagro, was only represented by one song "Make Somebody Happy", which is not even one of the better songs from that fine album. I would have loved to see a few more songs from Spirits Dancing and Milagro. The finale of "Soul Sacrifice", "Europa", and "Ji-Go-Lo-Ba" (just an updated "Jingo"), were simply mind-blowing. Carlos was probably having acid flashbacks to his show-stealing performance of "Soul Sacrifice" at Woodstock, because he played like he was a nineteen year old soul again. Raul Rekow on congas and Karl Perazzo on timbales were giving some unaccompanied stage-time to show their countrymen why they are one of the greatest Latin percussion sections in the world. "Ji-Go-Lo-Ba" worked the crowd into a frenzy, with the chanting, the tribal rhythms, and Carlos' incredible guitar solos. Towards the end of the song, Carlos slowed the mayhem down a little so he could introduce each band member and give them a short solo spot to flaunt their skills. If there is one thing you can always count on with Santana, it's that he always surrounds himself with a killer band. The production quality of this DVD is about what you would expect from a 1993 recording. As I mentioned earlier, a lot more effort could have been made to significantly improve this DVD over the original VHS version. What we do get is a rather dull, slightly grainy picture with a lack of color detail to really do justice to Santana's colorful stage show. There was no 5.1 surround audio track offered, but the Dolby Digital and PCM stereo tracks sounded excellent. If your amplifier allows, like mine, you can create an impressive live concert atmosphere by incorporating all of the surround speakers. Having all of the incredible percussion and crowd noise hitting you from behind, as well as the front, really enhances the live experience. The camera work was a little too frenetic, and the performances were interrupted by the alternate video clips much too often for my taste. With the longevity of Santana's career, and the frequency with which he has always toured, I expect that someday we will get the career-defining live concert DVD, similar to Led Zeppelin's DVD, that us fans have been eagerly waiting for years. It's certainly great to hear all of the popular concert staples from the first three Santana albums, but wouldn't it be awesome to hear some of the great jazz-fusion from Caravanserai, or some of the overlooked pop-rock gems from Festival and Zebop. In the mean time, let this great 1993 performance hold you over. Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - April 2005 |
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Running Time: 97 Minutes |
DVD Release Date - June 2001 |