Home Theater Concert: Jeff Beck

Just finished watching 'Jeff Beck Performing this week: Live At Ronnie Scott's' on Blu-ray disc.

Now, I should point out that I have never claimed to be a huge Jeff Beck fan. I own maybe half a dozen CDs of his, but I never really kept up with his work. On top of that, I never listed him as one of my favorite guitarists (although I do consider him a great guitarist).

That being said, I had heard and read a lot of great things about this disc, so I decided to pick it up. Needless to say, I do not regret this decision in the least. First, the audio and video quality on this disc is amazing, akin to the Return to Forever Live at Montreaux BD. Of course, not to be outdone by the film and sound crew, the performance is outstanding, with a nice blend of rock, jazz, and fusion selections, and is sure to please even the most casual Jeff Beck fan. In fact, even if you're just a fan of music you'd probably get enjoyment out of this disc. Accompanying Jeff in the core band for this performance is Jason Rebello on keyboards, my second favorite Zappa drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (second to T. Bozzio IMO), and the extremely talented and very cute Tal Wilkenfeld on bass. Guest appearances include Joss Stone, Imogen Heap, and Eric Clapton.

Also, as a bonus (exclusive to the Blu-ray), you get a shorter Rockabilly set with Jeff and the Big Town Playboys as sort of an opening performance (if you watch it first, which I did not).

In any case, if you're a fan of good musical performances, I highly recommend this disc. If you're a fan of Jeff Beck, it's a no-brainer.

It pays to pre-order

So Porcupine Tree will be releasing a Blu-ray/DVD package of a concert filmed towards the end of their amazing Fear of a Blank Planet tour. It is called "Anesthetize" (also the title of an epic track off of the album Fear of a Blank Planet) and will be released in June. A financially draining limited special edition, which includes audio CDs of the video as well as a hard cover "book style" package can be purchased from the band's online store. Anyway, I decided to take the more frugal approach and I pre-ordered just the standard BD/DVD package from Amazon. Well, at the time I placed my order, it was showing that it was Blu-ray only for $17.49, and also available was DVD only for $19.99. As it turns out, these were wrong, as it is ONLY being released as a BD/DVD set. I just checked, and they seem to have fixed the issue, and now it is listed at $22.49 (as of this blog post...it could still change). So thanks to Amazon's low price pre-order guarantee, I'm still only paying $17.49!
It pays to pre-order. :-)





I should note that Amazon STILL has a listing for just the standard DVD, but Kscope records (the label the DVD is on) insists it will NOT be released this way (unless they meant just the Blu-ray won't be standalone).