Hot Tuna: Burgers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		0.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Hot Tuna: Burgers Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 17, 2024

Hot Tuna might arguably be one of those bands which is better remembered for some of its "meta" aspects than maybe the actual music it has offered. With Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen having come directly from Jefferson Airplane to this aggregation, Hot Tuna probably had some built in expectations to meet, but one way or the other, Hot Tuna's music is decidedly different from Jefferson Airplane's, with a somewhat rootsier, blues drenched approach. Burgers was the band's first studio album and turned out to be its highest charting offering, though the fact that it didn't really even rise to extremely high levels there may indicate that for better or worse the album kind of like the band itself may be something of a cult item.

The track list for the album can be seen in the screenshots of the menu I've uploaded to accompany this review.

Hot Tuna: Burgers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Once again, there's no real video content other than a static menu. This is another Rhino release which has my personal preference in authoring choices, letting you toggle between audio codecs with the colored buttons on your remote. That means you don't really need to even have a monitor or display on when listening.

Hot Tuna: Burgers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hot Tuna: Burgers offers DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options. There's absolutely no doubt that the quadraphonic mix is noticeably louder and more vibrant than the stereo track, and it also has enjoyable directionality and channelization throughout. This album's "surround" mix offers another "head fake" (ear fake?) opening kind of like what I mentioned in my recent Pink Floyd: Animals Blu-ray review, in that "True Religion" begins as a veritable stereo mix for its opening measures before the band finally kicks in through the rear channels after the intro. Instruments can be split either forward or backward depending on the tune, with everything from guitars to piano emanating from either the front or rear speakers at various moments. The one big issue I had with the quad mix is that it really buries the vocals at times. Part of this seems endemic to the actual recording, since I wouldn't say the stereo mix has vocals mix as far forward as I would have liked, but I'd recommend anyone interested to simply toggle between the quad and stereo tunes during vocals to see just how much of the ambient fill of the quad mix can overwhelm the vocals. There's some very slight hiss noticeable in speakers that aren't engaged at any given moment, as well as quite a bit of hall / studio reverb, which in and of itself could have added to the vocal mix issues (though some appealing liner notes by Jorma Kaukonen actually talk about the excellence of the vocal isolation booth).

Hot Tuna: Burgers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on the disc. The insert booklet has a track listing with credits, photos of the band and (in something of a Rhino Quadio tradition) photos of the labelled boxes holding the original tape reels, along with Rhino's typical verbiage about bass management setup. The disc is silkscreened with the original Grunt Records label.

Hot Tuna: Burgers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The kind of sweet statement by Jorma Kaukonen included in the insert booklet mentions how Burgers is a "gentle album made by artists who were learning how to be heard". There's still some visceral rootsy energy despite that supposedly "gentle" quality, and the interesting combination of guest artists including Papa John Creach and David Crosby add to the flavor of these particular Burgers. I wish vocals had been mixed a bit (or maybe a lot) more forward on the quad mix, but it's otherwise nicely immersive and often enjoyably directional. Recommended.