Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 3, 2013

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 Guitar Festival 2010 would be a hard act to follow in any case, but the fact that the 2013 iteration of the Festival migrated to the Big Apple perhaps made the stakes even higher. Unlike the 2010 outing, which was hosted (more or less) by Bill Murray, this is a much more freewheeling affair, with Clapton simply ambling on stage as the concert starts, saying “hi”, and then sitting down and beginning to play. His reggae infused version of “Tears of Heaven” leads off the evening and gives a first glimpse into what this particular Festival will excel at doing—offering some great tunes in sometimes unfamiliar settings.

As with the previous releases of the Crossroads Festival, while the bulk of the playing time is given over to uninterrupted performance footage, there is also substantial interstitial commentary by the various participants. People like Vince Gill talk about dealing with Clapton, and almost all of them comment on how “real” he is, unaffected by his fame and status. Gill seems especially effusive in his praise, mentioning how it does the heart good to meet someone impeccably gifted and then to realize that they’re an even better person, divorced from those selfsame gifts.

Though this didn’t particularly bother me, one complaint I heard more than once about the 2010 Festival is that it was too eclectic, which may seem like an odd brickbat to through at a concert like this. But some fans evidently want their rock pure and straight up, with no country or jazz chasers. Those folks will probably be marginally more pleased with the 2013 Festival, which hews more closely to rock and blues material, though there are occasional forays into elements like Earl Klugh’s light jazz material. But overall this is a romping, stomping several hours of music, highlighted by a huge variety of artists (including The Allman Brothers, who couldn’t make the 2010 outing due to Gregg’s then recent kidney transplant).

The complete setlist on the two Blu-ray discs is as follows:

Disc One

1. Tears in Heaven – Eric Clapton
2. Spider Jiving – Eric Clapton with Andy Fairweather Low
3. Lay Down Sally – Eric Clapton with Vince Gill
4. Time is Tight -- Booker T. with Steve Cropper
5. Born Under a Bad Sign – Booker T. with Steve Cropper, Keb' Mo’, Blake Mills, Matt “Guitar” Murphy and Albert Lee
6. Green Onions – Booker T. with Steve Cropper, Keb' Mo’, Blake Mills, Matt “Guitar” Murphy and Albert Lee
7. Great Big Old House – The Robert Cray Band
8. Every Day I Have the Blues – The Robert Cray Band with B.B. King, Eric Clapton and Jimmie Vaughan
9. Next of Kindred Spirit – Sonny Landreth
10. Cry – Doyle Bramhall II with Alice Smith
11. Bullet and a Target – Doyle Bramhall II with Citizen Cope
12. She’s Alright – Doyle Bramhall II with Gary Clark Jr.
13. This Time – Earl Klugh
14. Mirabella – Earl Klugh
15. Heavenly Bodies – Kurt Rosenwinkel
16. Big Road Blues – Kurt Rosenwinkel with Eric Clapton
17. Next Door Neighbor Blues – Gary Clark Jr.
18. Queen of California – John Mayer
19. Don’t Let Me Down – John Mayer with Keith Urban
20. Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues – Buddy Guy with Robert Randolph and Quinn Sullivan
21. Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? – The Allman Brothers Band with Eric Clapton
22. Whipping Post – The Allman Brothers Band

Disc Two

1. Congo Square – Sonny Landreth with Derek Trucks
2. Change It – John Mayer with Doyle Bramhall II
3. Ooh—Ooh—Ooh – Jimmie Vaughan
4. Save the Last Dance for Me – Blake Mills with Derek Trucks
5. I Got to Let You Know – Los Lobos with Robert Cray
6. Don’t Worry Baby – Los Lobos
7. The Needle and the Damage Done – Allman, Haynes, Trucks
8. Midnight Rider – Allman, Haynes, Trucks
9. I Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This – Vince Gill with Albert Lee
10. Tumbling Dice – Vince Gill with Keith Urban and Albert Lee
11. Walkin’ Blues – Taj Mahal with Keb' Mo’
12. Diving Duck Blues – Taj Mahal with Keb' Mo’
13. When My Train Pulls In – Gary Clark Jr.
14. Please Come Home – Gary Clark Jr.
15. Going Down – Jeff Beck with Beth Hart
16. Mna Na Heireann – Jeff Beck
17. Key to the Highway – Eric Clapton with Keith Richards
18. I Shall Be Released – Eric Clapton with Robbie Robertson
19. Gin House Blues – Andy Fairweather Low with Eric Clapton
20. Got to Get Better in a Little While – Eric Clapton
21. Crossroads – Eric Clapton
22. Sunshine of Your Love – Eric Clapton
23. High Time We Went – Ensemble

Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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.

Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on either of the two Blu-ray discs in this set.

Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.