Search - Canned Heat :: On The Road Again

Stuck In The 60's . . .

Charles Holland | Pasadena, Texas USA | 02/12/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a Double DVD Set:



DVD #01 - "Most Excellent"! I was 20 years old in 1967. This DVD has the 'Original Members' Canned Heat Music along with a Storyteller History of the band from 1967 thru 1998 beginning at the Monterey Pop Festival to Woodstock including Overseas Tours up until 1998.



It also includes some History of the 'Original' Band Members, their Lives, their Hopes, their Dreams, their visions, their deaths and their last concerts. It filled in a lot of gaps of Canned Heats History and answered a lot of questions that I had wondered about personally over the years . . . since I was part of the 60's Generation. I Rate this Item a "4 Star" based upon DVD #01 . . . Not DVD #02.



DVD #02 - I Rate DVD #02 a Possible/Maybe "0 to 1 Star". I was Not Impressed. I didn't recognize any of the band members. All New Faces. They tried their best but I wasn't impressed.



Concert @01 consists of music "Piazza Blues" recorded at the "Piazza Governo" in Bellinzona, Switzerland by a "Foreign" Canned Heat Group singing the Original Canned Heat songs on June 30, 2000...(Not The Same)!



Concert #02 was recorded Live at The Subway Club, Cologne, Germany on March 24, 2000.



Conclusion: Despite DVD #02...Personally, I would "BUY" this set based upon the Storyteller Account and Music of DVD #01 of the "Original Canned Heat Members". This DVD Set also includes Live Interviews with Bob Hite (1973), Henry Vestine (1996) and Fito De La Parra (1991) who were part of the Original Canned Heat Band Members!

"

GREAT 2-DVD SET!

Bookworm | 05/01/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The first DVD tells the story of Canned Heat through 52 pieces of footage from their concerts and promo clips running nearly 3 1/2 hours.

It starts with showing the Heat playing at Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and ends with them playing at Rockpalast in 1998.

There's no narrator, only Canned Heat doing their thing.



Here's some of the content:



All the Playboy Sessions from 1969 (3 songs and a short interview with Bob Hite).

Montreaux, 1973 - 2 songs, "Rock And Roll Music", and, "Refried Boogie" (14 min.!). This is from the same concert as the DVD called

"Canned Heat - Live From Montreaux". Too bad they did'nt include these 2 songs on the DVD but here they are!

Kralingen, Holland, 1970 - 2 songs, "So Sad", and, "Human Condition". I've seen them on Youtube but here they're in colour!

"Leaving This Town", from Woodstock. (I wish they had chosen "I'm Her Man, or, "On The Road Again" instead)

"Future Blues", from Montreaux, 1970. (I wish they had chosen one of the other songs from the concert, especially their extended version

of "On The Road Again", in which Alan Wilson plays his harmonica for quite a long time)

There's concert footage from countries such as Sweden, France, Italy, Germany and Belgium, I have'nt seen before. Songs that are not on their albums! How cool is that?

There's 3 songs where Becky Barksdale is part of the line-up, 1 song with Ronnie Barron in the Line-up, and 1 song with

Larry Taylor on upright bass.

There's 4 songs from the Woodstock Reunion in 1989, and 2 songs from Christmas Eve, 1980, four months before Bob Hite's death

on April 4th, 1981. John Lee Hooker sings and plays guitar on one of the songs (the camera focus' on Hooker all the time, unfortunately).

There's a song from Henry Vestine's very last concert in Gouvy, Belgium, 1997. He died two days later, October 18th, in Paris.



The quality of some of the concert footage, especially among the oldest footage, is'nt great and the same goes for the sound quality in a few of the oldest songs.

However, It is acceptable to watch and listen to, and it only affects a small part of the oldest footage. The old promo clips seems to hold up well though.



The second DVD consists of two concerts from 2000. One in Switzerland, and one in Germany.

The Switzerland concert line-up: Greg Kapucinski - bass (who's he? Is it Greg Kage' real name?), Fito - drums, Larry Taylor - guitar (!),

Stanley Behrens - sax & flute, Dallas Hodge - guitar & vocals.



The Germany line-up: Greg Kage - bass & vocals, Fito - drums, Dallas Hodge - guitar & vocals, John Paulus - guitar,

Stanley Behrens - harmonica, flute, sax & vocals.



Great concerts and sharp footage.



Extras - three interviews: Interview with Bob Hite, 1973 (the French translator speaks over Bob's voice a large part of the time but there's English subtitles

available) - five min.

Interview with Henry Vestine, 1996 - two min.

Interview with Fito De La Parra, 1991 - 6 1/2 min.



The second DVD is about 1 hour 40 min. long The total length for both DVD's are 5 hours 9 min.



The 2 - DVD set comes with a 20 page booklet. There's 3 pages with an excerpt from Fito De La Parra's book, "Living The Blues", about the time

when the band got busted in Denver. It ends with a paragraph about Fito's book, written by his friend, Gabi Schwanke.

Then there's over 7 pages with a complete chronological discography with commentary by Fito, lifted from his book (the book is a 'must' for die hard Canned Heat fans!).

A 2 page list of all 52 songs, where they were performed, which year, and their duration (Disc One).

A 1 page list naming all the songs performed at the two concerts from Switzerland and Germany (Disc Two).



I think the 2 - DVD set is a great companion for the "Boogie With Canned Heat" DVD, in which Fito, Larry and Skip (their manager) tells the story of Canned Heat. That DVD only shows a part of each song in it, and that's why this 2 - DVD set is a great companion because here you get to watch the songs in their entirety, most of which are not on the "Boogie With Canned Heat" DVD.



However, this 2 - DVD set does have a few minor "flaws" in my opinion. Four of the 52 songs on disc one are only between 1 min. 15 sec. and 1 min. 40 sec. long. Maybe they did'nt have all the footage for the songs, but it's an irritant none the less. The worst one being a song from the 10th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, which is not only way too short but there's no concert footage, only some footage of the venue, Madison Square Garden. I don't get it because there's a concert segment of one of the songs from the festival on the "Boogie With Canned Heat" DVD, but maybe they could'nt afford to buy some of the concert footage. I think the only reason they included it without concert footage, was because it was a big event in Canned Heat's career. The line-up included Hollywood Fats on guitar, and Jay Spell on piano and vocals.



I also think they could have made some better selections of songs in a few cases, which I have already mentioned.



But, all in all, these are minor gripes, and I think the DVD set is a 'must' for Canned Heat fans! I've given it 5 stars, but maybe I should only have given it 4 1/2 star, but unfortunately that's not an option.

"