Simply Red: Live At Montreux Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Simply Red: Live At Montreux Blu-ray Movie Review

Do you know them by now?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 20, 2012

If Mick Hucknall has a really good memory, he might recall having played Portland many years ago. Simply Red wasn’t exactly Top 40 material any longer, but it still commanded enough cachet that the band was able to play a fairly large venue, and Mick and the boys must have gotten to Portland either the night before or the morning of their concert. I was lounging about “Portland’s living room”, the huge brick clad block in the center of town known as Pioneer Square, enjoying a rare sunny Northwest day. Suddenly I saw a huge shock of flaming red hair approach me. I just assumed it was a regular old tourist who looked at me and asked, “’Scuse me, mate, can you tell me where Powell’s Bookstore is?” I pointed out the way to one of Portland's cultural treasures to the gangly man whose hair erupted from beneath a little cap, giving him quick verbal directions as well. It was only after he had left that I suddenly figured out who I had been talking to, as visions of Simply Red’s music videos for tunes like "Holding Back the Years" and “If You Don’t Love Me By Now” danced through my mind.

Despite having sold some 50 million records in their long career, Simply Red are in fact probably most remembered for a relative handful of tunes, like the two that immediately sprang to my mind after having my momentary encounter with Mick all those years ago. That’s a shame, really, because the band has been one of the most versatile assemblages to come out of what was once a burgeoning British soul movement, a movement that has continued to grow and morph through the years and is still in full flower (albeit in somewhat different form) in such stellar bands as Incognito. But this 2003 Montreux Festival concert shows that Mick and the boys (and girls, courtesy of two great backup vocalists) can essay any number of genres quite effectively.

While some of Simply Red’s big sellers are covered in this concert, the band moves through some lesser known numbers, some of which were then fairly new to the 2003 audience. From the quasi-jazz waking bass feel of the opening number “Sad Old Red” to the follow up “Enough”, a minor ninth extravaganza that could have easily been from the playbook of another British soul superstar, Lisa Stansfield, Simply Red sets a tone of versatility right off the bat that continues pretty much nonstop for the following hour and a half. This is a no frills concert with Mick barely uttering a word, and the band simply seguing from tune to tune without missing a beat (no pun intended).

Mick is in great voice, albeit one that still sounds a bit screechy in its upper register, as it always has. He tends to wail a bit on those upper notes, which actually helps infuse his interpretations with some added soul. It makes his reworking of “You Make Me Feel Brand New” drip with raw emotion, and it also makes one of the concert’s highlights, a nicely unplugged (at least to begin with) rendition of one of Simply Red’s signature tunes, “Holding Back the Years,” especially effective, with Mick simply strumming the tune’s two chords on an acoustic guitar as he delivers the memorable melody with heartfelt ease.

The concert wraps up with two tunes that once again shows how truly versatile the band is. “Fairground” is a quasi- samba, replete with propulsive percussion and some convolutged syncopation that suddenly erupts into a hook laden chorus. The band, augmented by some great brass players, has a field day on this tune. And then we’re back into a sort of jazz fusion soul sort of territory, incredibly redolent of Paul Hardcastle (especially with regard to the flute riff which fills the tune) in “Sunrise”, a nice finale to a concert that caught Simply Red in fine form, without a lot of bells and whistles, but with appealing musicality and a broad range of songs and approaches firmly on display.

The complete set list for this 2003 Montreux Festival concert is:

1. Sad Old Red

2. Enough

3. Lost Weekend

4. A New Flame

5. Night Nurse

6. Something For You

7. You Make Me Feel Brand New

8. Home Loan Blues

9. Stars

10. Fake

11. Come To My Aid

12. Thrill Me

13. The Right Thing

14. Something Got Me Started

15. Holding Back the Years

16. Money’s Too Tight To Mention

17. Fairground

18. Sunrise

Simply Red: Live At Montreux Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Simply Red: Live at Montreux is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. While there's nothing horrible about this transfer, Eagle Rock might have done better to have released the 2010 concert included here as a bonus as the main feature and shunted the 2003 concert off to the supplementary features, for the difference in video quality is fairly noticeable. The 2003 concert has much less consistent contrast, with some quasi-ghosting caused by lighting issues, as well transitory posterization and an overall softness that makes some of the shots from the audience and further back blurry and indistinct. A lot of the close-ups look considerably better, with decent fine detail, but many of these are cast under garish yellow or blue lighting schemes, which once again robs the image of some of that fine detail. The 2010 concert looks quite a bit better, whether due to better technology or a somewhat brighter lighting design.

Simply Red: Live At Montreux Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Simply Red: Live at Montreux has three audio options, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix, an LPCM 2.0 stereo fold down, and a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix. Both of the lossless offerings here feature stellar audio, with excellent fidelity and clear reproduction of all frequency ranges. The 5.1 mix nicely opens up the proceedings, spreading the large band across the sound field but wisely keeping the huge audience sound to the rear channels, where it only infrequently intrudes into the music. The mix here pushes Mick's voice front and center, with the backup vocalists just slightly buried at times. The brass and wind players sound great, though occasionally the flute could stand to have been mixed up a bit hotter. There's virtually no chit chat during this concert, with Mick and the band simply segueing effortlessly from tune to tune. Dynamic range isn't overly wide, but does come into play at times, especially with regard to some of the acoustic moments.

Simply Red: Live At Montreux Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Simply Red: Live at Montreux 2010 (1080i; 34:15) offers a more recent iteration of the band (shortly before they broke up, in fact), and features several bonus tracks, including:

1. Out On the Range

2. To Be With You

3. Your Mirror

4. Heaven

5. For Your Babies

6. Ain't That A Lot of Love

7. If You Don't Love Me By Now

Simply Red: Live At Montreux Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Simply Red supposedly called it quits for good in 2010 (though anyone who's seen the break ups of bands since time immemorial knows it's best not to count any band out forever, especially with nostalgic reunion tours and copious cash beckoning various members). That means the 2010 concert included on this Blu-ray as a supplement was one of their last performances, and it shows that the band really lost none of its verve or soulfulness through the years. Those same qualities are certainly on display in the earlier 2003 concert as well, and perhaps even more than the shorter 2010 snippet, the 2003 offerings proves what a versatile unit Simply Red was. Though the band was typically labeled as one of many British Soul outfits, they really were able to traverse a surprisingly wide array of genres, and the 2003 concert finds them doing that with a lot of energy and finesse. The video of the 2003 concert leaves at least a little bit to be desired, but the audio is excellent, and the 2010 concert excerpts provide a very nice bonus. Recommended