Santana: Live at the US Festival 1982 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Santana: Live at the US Festival 1982 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 26, 2019

Santana: Live at US Festival bears a dedication to Bill Graham, one of the founders and organizers of the two early eighties' rock concerts that also were helped along by some computer guy named Wozniak or something. This release from Shout! Factory is a kind of combo platter that presents Santana's 1982 performance at US as almost interstitial offerings between contemporary interview segments with Santana. The result is a bit less of a Behind the Music than some might hope (or fear), and Santana doesn't really hold back from a variety of opinions (including hints at the current political climate) which may ruffle a few feathers, but the concert itself finds the band in incredibly good form, with the added benefit of jazz legend Herbie Hancock sitting in on keys for a couple of numbers (this may have been done on the fly, because you can clearly see Herbie kind of hilariously looking backward at Santana's main keys guy Richard Baker to see what the changes are as things get underway, though Herbie takes off on some great solos once he gets into the groove). There's a kind of nice loose feeling to this concert where Santana is given plenty of room to stretch out on solos.

While the concert isn't presented uninterrupted (that might have actually made for a better experience for some diehard fans), the track list for the performance sections is as follows:

• Searchin'
• Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen
• Oye Como Va
• Nowhere to Run
• Incident at Neshabur
• Savor
• Jingo Lo Ba
• Hold On
• She's Not There / Marbles
• Open Invitation
• Shango

Santana: Live at the US Festival 1982 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Santana: Live at US Festival is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with a 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 (for the contemporary interview segments with Santana) and 1.32:1 (for the archival concert footage). As might be gleaned from the aspect ratios themselves, this is a tale of two video presentations. The contemporary footage looks sharp and very well detailed, albeit without a ton of pop due to the gray clothes Santana wears. The concert video shows signs of being upscaled, with some stair stepping and other anomalies, some of which can be made out in some of the screenshots accompanying this review. My score is therefore kind of splitting the difference between the two aspects of this presentation.

Santana: Live at the US Festival 1982 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Some audiophiles may be disappointed that there's no surround track on this disc in addition to the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track, but the fact that the live performance audio sounds a little dampened in its upper registers may actually have been exacerbated by a surround rejiggering. You can clearly hear a drop off of some high end when the audio switches from the contemporary interview segments to the concert, but that said, fidelity is generally fine, providing good support for the midrange and low end, which benefits the rhythm section in particular. The interview segments all sound fine, as should probably be expected.

Santana: Live at the US Festival 1982 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Extended interview snippets with Santana are included as bonuses, on the following subjects:

• Woodstock and US Festivals (1080p; 1:51)


• The Signature Sound (1080p; 1:23)


• Santana's Music (1080p; 2:52)


• Santana and Bill Graham (1080p; 1:22)

Santana: Live at the US Festival 1982 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm a huge Santana fan, as I've disclosed in some other reviews of Santana material, and I personally kind of wished this release had followed more of an "Eagle Rock Entertainment" format and provided the concert as a standalone, with Santana's contemporary interview segments provided as a supplement. There are some built in limitations to both the video and audio presentations of the concert footage which may have in fact played into the decision to do this kind of a quasi-documentary, but fans of Santana will certainly find a lot here to enjoy. With caveats duly noted, Recommended.