I'll Do Anything: Jackson Browne Live In Concert Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

I'll Do Anything: Jackson Browne Live In Concert Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 19, 2013

The confessional singer-songwriter seemed to be more or less the exclusive domain of females as the sixties trundled along. There were the angels of light (Joni Mitchell) and dark (Laura Nyro), and any number of others who sought to follow in these iconic artists’ rather profound footsteps, but by and large they tended to be women. That all changed when Jackson Browne had his first mainstream success with “Doctor, My Eyes” in 1972. It probably didn’t hurt that Browne’s first solo album was released on David Geffen’s Asylum label. Geffen had in fact shepherded both Mitchell and Nyro at various points in their careers. At that point, Mitchell was herself an Asylum artist, experiencing career highs with such outings as Court and Spark, while Geffen had been Nyro’s first manager (and by some accounts, her lover as well) back in the mid-sixties. Browne continued to pump out fairly well selling albums and singles throughout the seventies, culminating in Running on Empty, an album that firmly established him as a bestselling artist while rather inventively reimaginging what a “live” album should be. Browne never shirked from mining his own personal troubles, including the tragic suicide of his first wife, and he also became a rather consistent voice in various activist circles both personally and through his music. The kind of ironic thing is Browne had been tooling around the music world for years before his eponymous Asylum album hit the record racks in 1972, even writing a number of hits for other artists. Those early years (including a stint with The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) no doubt gave Browne a leg up on navigating the often roiling waters of the music industry, something that has continued to aid Browne long after his Top 40 heyday had ended. Browne still is churning out music with consistent regularity and his activism is still front and center (he famously sued the McCain campaign in 2008 for using “Running on Empty” in ads without his permission).

I’ll Do Anything captured Browne and band in performance on November 14, 2012 at the Paramount Theater in Denver, Colorado. The title may not simply reference one of the tunes in Browne’s career spanning set list, it may actually indicate his frame of mind during the concert, as he seems rather loose and ready to take on whatever comes to mind—as evidenced by “Rock Me On The Water”, the inclusion of which seems (but may not actually be) like a spur of the moment decision. Browne still has instrumental chops galore, even if both his guitar playing and piano work tend to be fairly basic and minimalist. His voice has a few iffy moments here, notably on the beginning of “The Pretender” where it quite noticeably falters, but he regains he composure after such momentary missteps and delivers a really heartfelt performance. Browne sounds considerably deeper than he used (he is after all well into his sixties now), with a somewhat reedier and raspier tone than during his Top 40 years. In a way that only gives some of his music more meaning, especially the mostly obviously personal tunes he includes.

Browne’s back up band has some fantastic instrumentalists. Val McCallum plays electric guitar and harmonica, Sean Watkins plays acoustic guitar, Sara Watkins plays fiddle, Fritz Lewak plays bass and Tyler Chester plays keys and additional bass. Each of these players contributes some great moments to the show, with McCallum’s guitar solos especially well done. There’s a nice extended jam on the concert’s closer, “Before the Deluge”, that really allows everyone to stretch out beyond the typical strictures of a 32 bar pop song.

Browne’s set list for the concert is:

• 01. Black and White
• 02. I’m Alive
• 03. Farther On
• 04. The Naked Ride Home
• 05. Live Nude Cabaret
• 06. Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate
• 07. The Pretender
• 08. A Child in These Hills
• 09. Tokyo Girl
• 10. These Days
• 11. In the Shape of a Heart
• 12. The Late Show
• 13. I’ll Do Anything
• 14. Running On Empty
• 15. Take It Easy
• 16. Rock Me On The Water
• 17. Before the Deluge

I'll Do Anything: Jackson Browne Live In Concert Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

So it can be done. I'll Do Anything: Jackson Browne Live in Concert is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Inside Recordings with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1, and like many live performances, this one is absolutely drenched in blues and reds, as a cursory review of the screenshots accompanying this review will show. And yet, guess what? There isn't an ounce of posterizing or macroblocking in this release, a relative rarity in the world of live performance Blu-rays that feature these hues. That's the good news. The bad news is things are rather soft throughout this enterprise, even in extreme close-ups. There's no real lack of fine object detail, and some less demanding viewers may find this a decent enough presentation, but there just isn't that ultimate level of pop that defines some of the best releases in this genre we've seen over the past few years.

I'll Do Anything: Jackson Browne Live In Concert Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Perhaps surprisingly, I'll Do Anything: Jackson Browne Live in Concert has only a Dolby TrueHD 2.0 stereo mix as an audio option. This is therefore one of the few live concert Blu-ray that I personally can recall that doesn't offer a surround mix, either in Dolby Digital or one of the lossless audio codecs. This stereo rendering features really sparkling fidelity that is remarkably clear and uncrowded sounding (something helped by Browne's tendency to traffic mostly in clearly diatonic triadic writing). Browne's voice occasionally gets subsumed by the instrumental forces, but that may be a case of microphone placement (you'll see him futzing with his mic at various points, as if he's aware of the mix issues). The band sounds just great, with McCallum's guitar and Sara Watkins' fiddle real standouts.

I'll Do Anything: Jackson Browne Live In Concert Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

I'll Do Anything: Jackson Browne Live In Concert Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I frankly was never drawn to Browne's music in the inexorable way I was to Joni Mitchell's or Laura Nyro's. But I had more than one girlfriend back in the day who had Browne on her playlist virtually nonstop, so I got to know his tunes rather well. He's always been a fairly low key writer and performer, effortlessly blending pop and country sensibilities, something that comes through quite clearly throughout this affable concert. Browne fans will no doubt want to at least check out this release, if not purchase it, but the lack of a surround mix and supplementary material may make this less desirable for some.