Bluebird Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Bluebird Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 21, 2020

The bluebird is memorably often cited as a symbol of happiness, and for any lovers of country music, Bluebird is almost certain to engender a joyful response as it documents the impact a rather small and seemingly unprepossessing café in Nashville has had on the music scene of that city for decades. The fact that this documentary either has actual performances by or at least references any number of (in some cases kind of erstwhile) country music superstars like Garth Brooks, Faith Hill and Taylor Swift perhaps indicates as well as anything how many now celebrated performers got some of their formative gigs at the Bluebird. Filled with both memorable interview segments as well as some really enjoyable live concerts, Bluebird is both a history lesson but also a celebration of what "live music" can mean to both audiences and the people up there on the stage playing and singing their hearts out.

While the documentary's presentation of huge stars "returning to their roots" probably gives this piece its strongest commercial appeal, what may actually touch general music fans' hearts just as much are the really sweet reminiscences by a number of arguably somewhat lesser known folks who have seen performing at the Bluebird as a kind of rite of passage. In this time of quarantine and social distancing, with virtually no actual live music performances (with audiences in attendance) worldwide, Bluebird is also a testament to how much listening to music in a live setting can mean to both the audience and the artist.

Bluebird Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bluebird is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cleopatra and MVD Visual with an MPEG-2 encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Cleopatra continues to kind of slightly boggle my mind with its Blu-ray releases, with things like the now hardly ever utilized MPEG-2 codec, and perhaps even more saliently given that this is a music documentary, only lossy audio (see below). That said, the presentation here is nicely detailed a lot of the time, with both talking head and live performance moments offering good general detail levels, even if the palette can seem just slightly tamped down and a bit on the slate gray or blue side. A few passing scenes of audiences in the dimly lit performance space can look slightly murky, but overall this is a pleasing looking transfer without any major compression anomalies.

Bluebird Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I continue to be genuinely gobsmacked that a label with the built in music industry cred that Cleopatra has releases Blu-rays with only lossy audio, but that's once again the case here, with Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 tracks available. As I've mentioned in many previous Blu-ray reviews of discs which feature only lossy audio (including but not limited to other Cleopatra releases), while there may not be anything inherently "wrong" with these tracks, how much more energy would lossless audio have provided at least the musical moments here, if not the talking head sequences? All of that said, the Dolby Digital 5.1 track does open up the soundstage nicely during the musical moments and provides fine if narrower support for the spoken sections.

Bluebird Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Testimonials

  Bob Dipiero (1080p; 00:50)

  
  

  Brad Tursi (1080p; 00:33)

  
  

  Brothers Osborne (1080p; 1:03)

  
  

  Charlie Worsham (1080p; 2:06)

  
  

  Claude Kelly (1080p; 2:09)

  
  

  Deana Carter (1080p; 1:23)

  
  

  Eric Paslay (1080p; 1:32)

  
  

  Josh Osborne (1080p; 1:08)

  
  

  Lucie Silvas (1080p; 00:49)

  
  

  Matthew Ramsey (1080p; 00:45)

  
  

  Rory Feek (1080p; 1:19)

  
  

  Ruby Amanfu (1080p; 00:55)

  
  

  Shane McAnally (1080p; 1:01)

  
  

  Striking Matches (1080p; 1:43)

  
  

  Trevor Rosen (1080p; 00:48)

• Slideshow (1080i; 2:40)


• Trailer (1080p; 2:23)

Bluebird Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

You don't necessarily need to be a huge fan of country music to enjoy Bluebird, since its tale of the importance of a live music venue seems incredibly relevant to our socially distancing times (or at least it does to this musician). Video is fine despite being rendered via MPEG-2, but Cleopatra continues to waste incredible opportunities by only offering lossy audio. With caveats duly noted, Recommended.