Ian McLagan & The
Bump Band (Ohne Filter show)
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Concert: B
The Ohne Filter concert series has been a true
pleasure to cover because it always comes up with surprises. One such case is the April 25th,
2000 taping featuring Ian McLagan and The Bump Band. The singer first gained fame with the bands Faces and Small
Faces, the former of which launched the once unstoppable solo career of Rod
Stewart. They were a talented band and
from this concert, it looks like the public has been missing out for decades.
Though it is thirty years later, McLagan comes on raw and
strong in a set that is a much-needed throwback to what Rock music is really
all about. The songs are:
1) Can’t Be
Still
2) I Will
Follow
3) You’re
So Rude
4) You’re
My Girl
5) Hope
Street
6) Big Love
7) Whatcha
Gonna Do About It?
8) Hello
Old Friend
9) Don’t
Let Him Out of Your Site
10) Cindy Incidentally
11) She Stole It
12) Warn Rain
13) Been A Long Time
14) All Or Nothing
15) Little Troublemaker
16) Last Chance To Dance
I was barely familiar with these songs, but could not stop
watching and/or listening. Most
concerts just do not come to life for me, a fact that is especially annoying
when some people say the live version is always better than the studio
recording, no matter what. Those are
the kinds of people that helped to kill good music, not knowing what they were
talking about. Not having heard any of
the studio versions of this did not matter, because the consistency and flow of
the set was what we used to get all the time when the record labels and artists
were more serious and committed to quality and knew what good music was. Newer, often post-modern genres
notwithstanding (like Hip Hop and Turntablists) where deconstruction is the
point, what we would call the primary music forms and sources have suffered
tremendously and to hear the real thing blaring fourth is great. McLagan’s voice is older, but it rips
through each word, each lyric, with heart, soul and guts that are subversive as
compared to boy band dribble and vocalists who do more rolling with their voice
than a Ho-Ho factory.
The full frame PAL video is just fine for its age, but
even PAL has its softness, however recent.
The sound is available in both PCM 2.0 Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 AC-3
versions, both of which play back well enough.
The Dolby has some more depth and clarity, yet the PCM CD-like tracks
have a bit of fullness the Dolby lacks.
The extras are
the usual biography of the music act, as is on all Ohne Filter DVDs, as well as
the same engineer interview, web link, same producer interview, and a guide to
many other Ohne Filter concerts on DVD.
It is worth adding that the paper insert is different, featuring some
more recent concerts on DVD and nothing on audio connections.
After an
amazing run solo, Rod Stewart hit a wall in the Disco era where he decided to
give up the kind of top-rate Rock he was capable of. Hot Legs was the last great record, with rare singles
being worthy as soon as he asked the immortal question, Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? Looking back at it, we see how it helped to
begin to bury Rock in the 1980s with corporatism, hair bands, and other
idiocy. Ian McLagan is the kind of
rocker who should have found new life in the 1970s and 1980s, instead of being
an example of the hundreds of great musicians, writers and singers left behind
as record labels began their slow regression ideologically and rode the dual
waves of CDs and MTV. Ian
McLagan and The Bump Band on Ohne Filter shows that the real Rock
never died and is a little gem at about sixty minutes that could have gone on
for three hours and still been great.
This is one of the best Ohne Filter DVDs yet.
- Nicholas Sheffo
