Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 4, 2014

Eric Clapton fans have had at least a few Blu-ray releases through the years to whet their Guitar God appetites, including such titles as Eric Clapton: Live at Montreux and Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, as well as the audio Blu-ray Eric Clapton: Give Me Strength - The '74/'75 Recordings, but aside from those and Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2010 and Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013, both of which are obviously not exclusively devoted to Clapton, there hasn’t been much material devoted to the man, rather than exclusively to his music. Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric rather nicely mixes up interview and background information with (thankfully) complete performances of a number of great tunes, providing a generally well balanced piece that should please those jonesin’ for more music while also wondering what Clapton is really like in person.

Clapton, along with various bandmates like Paul Carrack, Steve Gadd and Nathan East who are famous in their own right, seem perfectly affable in the fun interview segments, and the footage of Clapton's 2014 World Tour shows both the rigors and goofiness that ensue during one of these jaunts. Clapton mentions his advancing years at one point and the question is left hanging as to how many more of these tours fans might reasonably expect to enjoy. Interspersed with the backstage material are the following songs:

1. Tell the Truth
2. Pretending
3. Crossroads
4. Driftin' Blues
5. I Shot the Sheriff
6. Little Queen of Spades
7. Layla
8. Wonderful Tonight
9. Key to the Highway
10. Before You Accuse Me
11. Tears in Heaven
12. Cocaine
13. Hoochie Coochie Man
14. High Time We Went (audio only under credits)

Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This is generally a nicely sharp and reasonably well detailed looking presentation, though oddly some of the concert footage doesn't quite rise to the same levels of clarity that the interview and other backstage material sometimes does. Typical concert sequence bugaboos like banding are in evidence, especially when lights are aimed squarely at the camera. There's also some slight posterizing at times, especially when things like bright hues (typically red or blue) pour over things like Steve Gadd's curly hair. Otherwise, though, colors look fresh and accurate and close-ups offer quite a bit of fine detail.

Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0 and an LPCM 2.0 mix. Despite not having an isolated low frequency channel, the lower registers in the 5.0 mix are quite boisterous, especially fulsome in bass and kick drum heavy pieces like "I Shot the Sheriff." There are occasional signs during some of the performances that vocal levels might have been pushed just a bit at the mixing board stage, so that there's just a very slight though discernable instability in midrange delivery. Rhythm section performances and interview/backstage material is crystal clear, with no problems whatsoever.

Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bonus Features (1080i; 10:34) include:

  Football or Music?

  Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out

  Guitars in the Desert

  Alabama Woman Blues

Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This one of the rare hybrid-documentary features that really nicely fulfils both sides of the equation. The performances are fantastic and the backstage confessionals and other chatter are quite illuminating. With a couple of exceptions, technical merits are also strong, and Eric Clapton: Planes, Trains and Eric comes Highly recommended.