Canned Heat – Live At Montreux 1973 (DTS)

 

Picture: C     Sound: B-     Extras: D     Concert: C+

 

 

By the mid-1960s, many bands were beginning to explore the possibilities of combining Blues and Rock.  For a few years, Canned Heat did just this.  They were not the biggest such band, but they racked up a few hits of note and they are all performed here in their only appearance at the famed Montreux Jazz Festival.  Canned Heat – Live At Montreux 1973 offers a 73 minutes long set of ten songs, including guest Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown (whose own Ohne Filter concert is covered elsewhere on this site) plays on four of the songs (2 – 5 below) as follows:

 

1)     On The Road Again

2)     Please Mr. Nixon

3)     Worried About Blues

4)     About My Oo Poo Pa Doo

5)     Funky

6)     Night Time Is The Right Time

7)     Let’s Work Together

8)     Rock & Roll Music

9)     Lookin’ For My Rainbow

10)  Shake ‘N Boogie

 

 

 

Brown was substituting for Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson, the victim of excessive drug use and Henry Vestine had already been replaced by Harvey Mandel on guitar back in 1969.  Still, the band sounds as good here as they did on record and this concert shows that they had more going for them than just being a singles band of some sort.  They had chemistry that remains in tact here despite the changes and wear of the 1960s into the 1970s, but there is something that is not the same and the result is an uneven 73 minutes that feels repetitive.  It is an historic piece considering what a key group they were to the counterculture, but a little can go a long way.

 

Considering the age of the concert, you would think that the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image would be shot on film, 16mm or 35mm.  Instead, Eagle has given old analog color video the treatment and though this is watchable, there is just no way to avoid detail limits and some artifacts throughout playback.  With that said, this cut well.  Was there some damage at the top or bottom of the original 1.33 frame?  Can’t see it here.  The sound is here in Dolby Digital 5.1, PCM 2.0 16bit/48kHz Stereo and DTS 5.1, with the DTS offering a slight edge.  However, the recording shows its age, though it sounds pretty good under the circumstances.  It is obvious this was not meant to be multi-channel.  There are no extras.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo