Stevie Ray Vaughan: Live at Montreaux 1982 & 1985

Rating:
Summary: Real Good, But I've Heard Him Do Better
Review: Don't get me wrong, I love this DVD, and I am a huge Stevie fan, but I've heard him play much, much better than that. Despite the tough crowd, they did play pretty dang good. However, the sound quality on the first performance kinda sucked. And on the second performance, on the last few songs, the camera work went way down hill, only one camera was working and it was way far away from the band. Overall, this DVD is pretty good, but there are some pretty noticeable flaws in it.

Rating:
Summary: There Can Be Only One!!
Review: When the audio cd's were released a few years ago there was a brief article in a guitar mag that suggested that a DVD of the performances was to follow shortly. I decided to wait in the hopes that the DVD would be available in the next couple of months. Well, several years later we finally all get to watch and hear something magnificent and historical.
Everyone who bought the audio cd's is familiar with hearing the boos from fans who were obviously ignorant of SRV's in your face, loud blues. We can now see for ourselves that despite the majority of ignorant fans ( in 1982 )there certainly were a number of fans that knew that they were seeing something to behold. True to their craft, SRV and DT played as if they were in front of a home town crowd. A testament to their love of performing to exhaustion. Seeing SRV play slide on "Give Me Back My Wig", is worth the price.
Bearded, full of confidence, lots of jewellry, big white hat with a fluffy white fox tail, shiney, glittery shirt, Stevie plays a no holds barred show in 1985. Anyone who booed in '82 surely held their heads low and bowed to SRV and DT. Johny Copeland plays and sweats buckets as he and Stevie tear up the stage for 3 songs. A great DVD for all SRV fans as well as hopefully new ones once you see both of these shows. MAN COULD HE PLAY THAT GUITAR.
I have one issue, during "Ain't Gon' Give Up On Love", in 1985, there seems to be some sort of edit glitch as Stevie somehow changes from number One guitar to a white "Charley" I believe. If you watch closely and in slow mo you can notice some wierd edit or something. If they played only one show, how did they do this?

Rating:
Summary: What a difference three years make?
Review: As the title of this review reflects, the difference from the 1982 show and the 1985's were mostly about the audience. The reason the first show's audience kept booing wasn't Stevie's fault, it was obviously a management bone-head decision to add SRV group to a program full of acoustic/folk music crowd. In the 1985 show the crowd was wowed by SRV at his best served up to the right audience.

This is by far the best video/audio version of a man who was taken tragically from us and this DVD stands as his legacy...

Rating:
Summary: Still and always will miss him
Review: Had the pleasure of seeing this man perform live twice, I've been struggling with the guitar for 44 years, and I had no idea you could do what he did. These two performances come close to capturing this band, and I consider it out of the highlights of my life to be able to say that what I saw on a cold winters night in Poughkeepsie, NY was even better. Why did we invade Iraq? We should have bombed and invaded Montreux and given them something to boo at, how dare they...the little pukes.

Rating:
Summary: Saw this...
Review: I saw the 1985 concert on TV awhile ago. On DirectTV they
have a free concert every month and they showed this one.
I must say it touched me to see him place with such passion
and concentration. It kicked off with Scuttle Buttin which
is one of the best instrumentals I've ever heard. All the
problems have been talked about in several reviews.

I wasn't raised on Blues... I wish raised on country
music and rock growing up. So I didn't get a chance
to hear Stevie Ray Vaughan growing up. I'm glad I
picked up on him and this concert locked him up as
one of my favorite musicians ever. I got this recorded
and watch and listen to it often. There simply isn't
anything like it. It;s really sad he died so early in
his career and in his life.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Comprehensive Display of SRV Material Available
Review: Like most people who are into Blues, I couldn't wait to see this set when it was released. It contained two SRV sets at a very reasonable price and a short documentary as well as 5.1 DTS sound. Well it is great! Like my all time favourite, Albert King (see my reviews), material available on SRV (for all his impact in the 1980s) is rather scarce. I even saw him in Australia and he was so loud you really couldn't appreciate it, he needed smaller venues! This was a great chance to see him perform.I think the overall production of this set is excellent, as it usually is at Montreaux. Great sound and camera work.

Well as a Blues enthusiast of 40 years. I think the first disc is far better than the second (but I love Reece Wynans keyboards). All the hipe about him being booed to me is overplayed. As a guitarist he was better when he was hungry, than after he became famous (do you know of a bluesman, not rock, that actually produced better material after they got famous?)(Listen to Buddy Guy, Albert King, Little Walter, Junior Wells, etc etc even Johnny Winter, the original SRV). So this is great and I agree the El Mocambo set is great, but I rate the first disc as his best work.

Top selection to me on Disc one is how he modernized Freddie King's Hideaway and combined it with Rude Mood (Urban/Country Blues). Just great. And the final tune is a great Albert Collins salute without copying Collins difficult style-you still recognise it (like in some of Duke Robillard's work). Fantastic! The old standbys- Texas Flood and Pride and Joy are great of course and his great slow blues Dirty Pool has that great unexpected chordal solo- an ode to Otis Rush's "Double Trouble" without, again, copying him completely (except the into).

The booing didin't bother me. It's not as bad as the publicity made out. Most people are dancing and clapping and getting into it. If all booed maybe Stevie should have worried, but that wasn't likely. European audiences are strange as the Doors said in 1968, "they didn't clap or anything, they just stared". You know anything new from outside always has had trouble with Europeans, they are more traditional than we colonists. That's why in the 1960s the Folk Blues festival was so popular, they had Howlin Wolf and Muddy,(they were stuck in the 1950s) but never Paul Butterfield or Steve Miller.

Well this DVD is a landmark. Advice: If you can get this in PAL: the sound and picture quality is better. I am in Bahrain travelling and just bought another copy in PAL to supplement my NTSC one. Great!!!

The second disc has some replication of course. The addition to the band of Reece Wynans was a great move. Made them a Booker T & the MGs's with rock guitar and singing. All tracks are great, but the Slow Blues Tin Pan Alley with the late Johnny Copeland (who won a Grammy with Robert Cray and Albert Collins for the "Showdown" LP) is my personal favourite. Intense and honest the way the Blues should be!!! Actually the whole Copeland sub-set if my favourite part of the disc along with, again the opening instrumental of Scuttle-Buttin and Say What!

Every Blues fan should own this historic CD. Note, some useless information: SRV was the age Jimi Hendrix died when he played on Disc 1. He was also born the year the Stratocaster was first released by Fender.

Also: To comment on a previous review. It seems that in "Ain't Gone 'N' Give Up On Love" Stevie switches guitars- from Old Number One Strat. Well it looks to me like he probably broke one of his heavy gauge strings on the first solo, changed guitars, and played on. The Swiss film crew just edited it, cleverly.

Rating:
Summary: SRV
Review: Short & sweet:

Just "Tin Pan Alley"(on Disc 2) is worth the price for this DVD.
Quit wasting time: Buy it.

( Best viewed at 800x600 but 1024x768 is okay. Turn UP the volume...)

Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings on this one.
Review: The first disk of this two disk set features a great early performance by SRV, unfortunately punctuated by boos from an unappreciative, and uniformed, audience. The extra feature merely echoes what the booklet explains in great detail, but it's nice to see some familiar faces talking about the event.

The 2nd CD, supposedly SRV's triumphant return to Montreux, is in my opinion a bit of a disappointment. To me it looks like Stevie Ray was in the full throes of his alcholism and drug abuse. He literally didn't look well, although that scraggly beard didn't help his appearance much. His speech sounded slurred, and his playing was not up to par. His performance on the "Live at the El Mocambo" video far outshines Disc 2. It was nice to see him playing with Johnny Copeland (even though Johnny forgot the words to Tin Pan Alley and played his guitar instead!), but overall I felt a little underwhelmed.

The final insult comes during the last encore on Disk 2. Presumably all but one of the cameras was turned off before the band came back on stage and the encore is one long, static shot from the balcony. Clips from his music videos are thrown in over the end of the last song to break up the monotony, but even those are repeated at least twice to fill in the gap!

If you've never seen an SRV concert then you should be pleased overall with this DVD. If you're a diehard SRV fan, you won't be able to resist getting more material from him. If you're not a big fan and are looking to "dabble" into SRV, get the "El Mocambo" release.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Essential
Review: This is a must have for your DVD library. Both the '82 and '85 performances are electrifying to watch.

Rating:
Summary: history in the making
Review: Well, I can't write about this with an objective perspective. It was 1985 and I was there. It was the year when SRV established himself as one of the main blues artist in the whole scene and surely as a true innovator. THis could sound strange because he had more than one eye toward tradition. You could clearly hear Jimi Hendrix, Albert and Freddy King and a shade of Lightning Hopkins in his playing. But it was the heart that linked this tradition together bringing all to another level that sounded as a new thing, appealing to young and more rock oriented people. It really move you inside to see how he helps Johnny Copeland on stage, who clearly had trouble to "catch the same blues train" SRV was playing. There you can see how he could manage to take the blues many steps ahead and still have all the respect and love for the old blues masters. It's really sad he'll never become one of them.
That night I was there to see how good it was the new blues wonder, but I wasn't aware that twenty years later I'd relive that concert on an historic dvd.
From the booing of 1982 to the 1985' triumph it's a great tale of how different people can react to the same music, played by the same artist. Sometimes people need some help to understand......So long Stevie.