7.8 | / 10 |
Users | 1.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.9 |
The Crossroads Guitar Festival hosted by Eric Clapton, in Chicago, features performances by a host of guitar legends.
Starring: Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, Jeff Beck (I), Steve WinwoodMusic | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
None
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Artists are often curiously insecure people, prone to glancing furtively over their shoulders to see what young new “up and comers” might be threatening their position in their chosen line of work. One might think that an artist of Eric Clapton’s stature wouldn’t be party to such psychological shenanigans, and if one were to judge solely by the evidence of his every few years Crossroads Guitar Festivals, one would certainly have to come to the conclusion that either Clapton is very secure or is at least doing a damn fine job compensating. Each of the Crossroad Guitar Festivals has offered an incredible panoply of guitarists in a number of widely disparate styles, all ostensibly hand chosen by Clapton himself, and thereby performing with the great one’s implied imprimatur. The Festivals are ostensibly fund raisers for Clapton’s Crossroads Centre, a rehab facility located in Antigua of all places. But for music lovers worldwide, the Festivals have become huge celebrations of the art of guitar playing in many (if not quite all) of its iterations, and the 2013 Festival, which was held April 12 and 13 in Madison Square Garden, is no exception.
Eric Clapton's Crossroads Music Festival 2013 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Rhino Music with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is one of those concert outings that has some off putting anomalies that aren't directly tied to the transfer, but which are extremely annoying nonetheless. First, let's dispense with the positives, which are quite numerous: this is a progressive presentation, and so problems like combing artifacts never become an issue, and the overall image is quite clear and well defined, with great fine detail in the many close-ups. Contrast and black levels are strong, and colors are very accurate looking and nicely saturated. But now for the bad, which frankly drove me a little nuts (not a very long drive, as regular readers of my reviews are probably already aware): whoever was operating the cameras for this multi-performance concert must have had an itchy trigger finger or simply had no idea how to pull focus. It is truly incredible how many shots in the hours of performances here feature blurry imagery, which suddenly sharpens for a moment, only to devolve again into completely out of focus imagery. What in heaven's name is going on here? One or two of these moments would be (perhaps) understandable, but scores of them? Is this some kind of new "stylistic" thing, a la the ever popular "jiggly cam" or the manic editing style which frequently interrupts viewing of concerts (and which is thankfully not reproduced here)? For now, it's an unanswered question, but my hunch is I'm not going to be the only one bothered by this peculiar phenomenon. There are some compression artifacts on display on occasion, including noticeable spikes in noise during darker segments. Though it may not be "fair" in terms of a transfer based issue (which the focus issue at least is not), I'm deducting a half point from the score out of sheer pique.
As with Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2010, the 2013 Festival's audio mixes are impeccable. Both the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround outing and the LPCM 2.0 stereo folddown offer sterling fidelity, often breathtaking clarity and ambience, and, in the case of the 5.1 mix, a really appealing depth and spaciousness. The one tiny, niggling issue I personally had with this mix (which others may actually find a definite positive) was the aggressive mixing of the kick drum, which is placed too far forward and too loudly for my personal taste, delivering an almost seismic "thump" in many tunes. Once again as with the previous year's Blu-ray release, both tracks effortlessly segue between the more raucous rock and blues numbers and quieter, more acoustically flavored, pieces.
No supplements are offered on either of the two Blu-ray discs in this set.
Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013 is another fantastic compendium of incredible musicians (and not all of them guitarists, by the way) playing a huge variety of fantastic tunes. Some of the interstitial stuff gets to be a bit on the syrupy side, but the music itself is simply magical. While there are some issues inherently wrong with the transfer here, the continual focus issues just really drove me to distraction after a little while, so forewarned is forearmed. The audio on the other hand is flawless. Recommended.
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