Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' and A-Rockin' Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' and A-Rockin' Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 4, 2013

It’s perhaps a little surprising that Cliff Richard never really had the same impact in the music scene on this side of the pond that he did in his native England. Richard has set untold records (no pun intended) in the British music industry, selling hundreds of millions of records and by some accounts becoming the biggest selling male artist in British history. While Richard had some occasional big hits in the United States, ironically some of his biggest, like “We Don’t Talk Anymore”, came well after his rock and roll heyday in the late fifties and early sixties and in fact presaged what was to become a rather successful second act in show business. Richard has continued to record (including several appearances on various charts) and perform worldwide, and this 2013 performance from his Still Reelin’ and A-Rockin’ Tour finds the singer ambling about the spacious stage of the Sydney Opera House in terrific form, with a still languid and supple voice (which is strangely reminiscent of Nik Kershaw’s at times), acing an over two hour set that sticks pretty squarely (though not exclusively) to rock and pop songs from that halcyon era when Richard first stormed the British charts.

Cliff’s songlist on this release includes:

1. Reelin’ and Rockin’
2. My Kinda Life
3. Dreamin’
4. Living Doll
5. Poetry in Motion
6. Sealed With a Kiss
7. Dream Lover
8. 12th of Never
9. “D” in Love
10. Miss You Nights
11. Summer Holiday
12. The Next Time
13. What Car?
14. Singing the Blues
15. Move It
16. Willie and the Hand Jive
17. I Don’t care If the Sun Don’t Shine
18. Fabulous
19. Paralyzed
20. Ocean Deep
21. The Young Ones
22. Devil Woman
23. Some People
24. Suddenly
25. It’ll Be Me
26. Rip It Up
27. We Don’t Talk Anymore
28. Wired For Sound
29. I Could Easily Fall
30. In the Country
31. High Class Baby
32. Dynamite
33. Please Don’t Tease
34. Forty Days
35. Do You Wanna Dance

Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' and A-Rockin' Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' And A-Rockin' Live in Sydney is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Enterprises, with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This is for the most part a really great looking concert video, with sharp, clear imagery and a stable, precise looking image. Once again stage lighting tends to create most of the issues here, including some actually funny posterizing (including a big splotch of purple that repeatedly appears right smack dab in the center of the bald keyboard player's head). There are beams of light which occasionally affect contrast and rob the image of some detail (see screenshot 3), but otherwise this is a solid looking effort with no other overt compression problems.

Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' and A-Rockin' Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 mixes sound fantastic on this Blu-ray disc, offering Cliff's still agile voice mixed perfectly, and with his band (including great sounding backup singers) delivered with excellent fidelity and clarity. Dynamic range is surprisingly wide here given the mostly up tempo tunes that Richard does.

Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' and A-Rockin' Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bonus (1080i; 20:14) is an enjoyable interview with Richard.

Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' and A-Rockin' Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' And A-Rockin' Live in Sydney proves that the erstwhile Boy Wonder of British rock 'n' roll has lost little of his mojo in the intervening years. He's very energetic here, and he sounds absolutely great. Recommended.