Chicago: Live in Concert Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Chicago: Live in Concert Blu-ray Movie Review

Still Blowing Horns After All These Years

Reviewed by Michael Reuben October 31, 2011

Even for a casual and occasional fan (like me), the band Chicago is a hard habit to break. (Oops. There's an example right there. I promise not to do that again.) They've been part of the musical and cultural landscape for too long, in fashion and out. Their first incarnation, known as the Chicago Transit Authority (until the city's CTA threatened legal action) began in 1967. Think about that for a minute, all you youthful readers of Blu-ray.com. That's the "antique" era in which Mad Men now finds itself. Lyndon Johnson was still president, the Vietnam War was still raging, Watergate hadn't yet happened, and some houses still didn't have color TV. Home video systems? In your dreams!

When the band's first album appeared in 1969, it commanded immediate attention. It's hard now to appreciate the impact that Chicago's brassy, jazz-inflected sound made on ears accustomed to the guitar-dominated rock music of the late Sixties, but even Motown never sounded like this. Today, what's most remarkable is the band's extraordinary longevity, having survived such upheavals as the death (by accidental self-inflicted gunshot) of founding member Terry Kath in 1978 and the departure of founding member Peter Cetera in 1985. Even today, the band continues to tour, anchored by four founding members (guitarist and keyboard player Robert Lamm, brass players James Pankow, Lee Loughnane and Walter Parazaider) and three members who have been with the band for fifteen or more years (keyboardist Jason Scheff, drummer Tris Imboden and bassist and guitarist Keith Howland).

Chicago: Live in Concert (hereafter "CLIC") was recorded in 2003 as part of the "Soundstage" series produced by Chicago's public television station WTTW and shown on PBS throughout the country. (Soundstage had been an earlier series that WTTW canceled in 1985, and CLIC marked its new beginning.) This episode was first broadcast in June 2003 and has been a favorite ever since during PBS pledge drives. It was released in 2004 on a DVD that's been mercilessly flogged by PBS stations as a pledge bonus, and now Image has released it on Blu-ray.

As a concert presentation, CLIC is as simple and straightforward as one could wish. A group of eight musicians (the seven listed in the text above, plus guitarist Bill Champlin, who has since left the band) step onto the stage with the relaxed but energized air of professionals who have been doing this for years (which they have) but are catching the wave of enthusiasm from the eager throng of fans rising to greet them. Then they take their accustomed positions and begin to play.

The song selection includes a fair number of greatest hits, although purists will probably object that they don't sound right without Peter Cetera providing the vocals. (I always thought the horns mattered more.) What was once radically novel has become comfortably familiar, which is the inevitable price of the kind of success that the band enjoyed throughout the Seventies and Eighties. Then again, Chicago never affected the rebellious pose of a band like the Rolling Stones, which made it much easier for them to settle into a mainstream guise. Take a good look at their audience, who, as is usually the case with PBS concert broadcasts, are as well lit as the band. It's hardly an anti-establishment crowd.

Though the performing attire bespeaks a touch of glitz here and there (modest by comparison to rapper haute couture), Chicago is a relatively unshowy band. Their performance is about music, not spectacle, and the band's music has always required a tight integration of instruments and performers that doesn't allow any one individual to dominate the show. (Which is probably why the band is still together and also probably why Cetera left.) Even when the show is paused so that Tris Imboden can wow the crowd with one of those showy drum solos, he's almost modest about it, going about the task with a minimum of the grunting and straining and hair-tossing that you typically see from so many show-offs at the skins. It's as if he's saying, "Yes, I too can do this, but when I do it, it's the professional way."

At the time CLIC was recorded, the band had just licensed their entire catalogue to Rhino Records, which had released a CD box set plus DVD. Watching this concert may just inspire you to check it out. The complete song list for CLIC is as follows:

1. Make Me Smile
2. Color My World
3. Now More Than Ever
4. If You Leave Me Now
5. Dialogue
6. Hard Habit To Break
7. Saturday In The Park
8. Beginnings
9. Just You 'N' Me
10. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
11. Feelin' Stronger Everyday
12. I'm A Man
13. Hard To Say I'm Sorry / Get Away
14. Free
15. 25 or 6 to 4

Chicago: Live in Concert Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Soundstage is a joint production between WTTW and HD Ready, LLC, whose founder Joe Thomas directed Chicago Live in Concert. HD Ready is a full-service production company that presumbly provided the source materials for Image's 1080i, AVC-encoded Blu-ray. Though recorded in 2003, the source is extremely clear and detailed, with no visible combing or distortion from the interlaced format. Black levels and resolved detail are very good, both on stage with the band and in pans over the crowd. (It no doubt helps that everything is thoroughly lit.) Minimal aliasing can be spotted on fine patterns seen from a distance, but this a minor and occasional issue. Colors are rich and well-saturated. The 83-minute program has been delivered on a BD-25, which accommodates the program without compression artifacts.

Chicago: Live in Concert Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless track has clarity and punch, and it is particularly effective at delivering the individual wind instruments so that one can distinguish trumpet from sax, trombone from flute, etc. The sound engineers have followed the common practice of choosing a position for each instrument and sticking with it, no matter what orientation may be dictated by the cutting choices of the video editors. This is clearly the preferable approach, but it occasionally creates cognitive dissonance between sound and picture, especially with the lead guitar, which the mixers have chosen to locate in the left toward the rear, even when the guitarist is shown in close-up on the screen. (For a few songs, keyboards are shifted to the right rear.) Percussion, vocals and the all-important brass section remain spread across the front soundstage, and they sound wonderful. The bass is strong but never overpowering.

There is a peculiarity, however, in the DTS lossless track. The center channel reads as present and active, but none of the sound has been routed there. It doesn't appear that any sounds have been omitted from the mix, as the soundfield is continuous, as on the alternate PCM 2.0 track; with front main speakers that image well, one should experience a so-called "phantom" center channel, and indeed I had to put my ear up to the center speaker to confirm that it was silent. Mixing the front left and right channels in this fashion, then marking the center as active, seems a little too precise a feat of engineering to have been a mistake, but the designation is misleading. It should be "4.1" (or, more accurately, "2/2.1").

Chicago: Live in Concert Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No extras are included on the Blu-ray. I do not have the 2004 DVD for comparison, but I have read that it included a collection of photos, a discography, a band bio (which would be out of date), and a "Meet the Band" feature (ditto).

Chicago: Live in Concert Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Not everyone is a Chicago fan. Not everyone likes concert discs. But for those who are interested, this is an excellent-sounding concert disc (despite the soundtrack oddity noted above) that I suspect will be watched once, then listened to repeatedly, assuming you like the band. I'd forgotten how much I do. Recommended.