Santana - Live at the US Festival
Director-Glenn Aveni
Cast-Carlos Santana
Country of Origin-U.S.
Distributor - Well Go USA
Number of Discs - 1
Reviewed by - Bobby Morgan
Date- 10/23/2019
The US Festival, which was first held on Labor Day weekend in September 1982, was intended by creators Steve Wozniak (the co-founder of Apple) and Bill Graham (the legendary rock concert promoter) to help usher in the 1980’s as a decade dedicated to breaking away from the self-centered “Me Generation” of the 70’s and nurturing an atmosphere of communal participation. They also hoped the festivals would help foster a fusion of rock music with the decade’s emerging technological ideas. Never let it be said that the era that gave us two terms of a Ronald Reagan presidency was bereft of a looking forward optimism.
On Saturday, September 4, 1982, the members of Santana, fronted by their fearless and innovative guitarist leader Carlos Santana, took the newly constructed stage in San Bernardino, California’s Glen Helen Regional Park for a rapturous performance of some of their greatest songs (with a few new tunes thrown into the mix). That set was filmed for posterity and now immortalized in the recent documentary Santana: Live at US Festival.
The performances comprise the bulk of this doc, with contemporary interviews with Carlos Santana framing each song and covering in brief a variety of topics related to the festival and his music. As wonderful as it is to see this modern music icon converse with an off-camera interviewer on matters such as professional relationships and his personal philosophy and technique with regards to his musical output, the major selling point is the concert footage. Here we get to see Santana still in their prime, rocking out of the turbulent 70’s into a more hopeful 80’s with funk, rhythm, searing licks, and plenty of spirit.
The set list 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
The interview bits with Santana may be short, but they give him enough screen time to share his memories of becoming involved in the festival, his relationship with Bill Graham, playing with jazz legend Herbie Hancock, the influence of African music on his own, and more. It would have been nice if director Glenn Aveni had been able to secure interviews with other members of the band to provide a fuller picture of the time, but I’m not really complaining. The centerpiece of Santana: Live at US Festival is right there in the title, giving fans of the group a rich opportunity to watch Carlos and the boys at their absolute live best.
Shout! Factory’s Blu-ray presentation of Santana: Live at the US Festival is understandably a mixed bag in terms of video quality. The interview segments with Santana were filmed in an unspecified widescreen aspect ratio (possible 1.85:1 by the looks of it), while the concert footage is presented in 1.33:1 full frame. The original festival performances were captured with early 1980’s standard-def video equipment and upscaled to 1080p resolution, thus the visual limitations of the era’s technology will be readily apparent at the start. Eagle-eyed viewers will notice traces of mild blocking and banding, but those are flaws that were going to be present anyway given the age of the footage and the format in which it was filmed. The interview footage was filmed in high-definition digital video and looks exceptional for the most part, with clothing, facial details, and background scenery gaining a great deal of verve and vibrancy.
The English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track offers an adequate recreation of the live performance experience with as much aural range and depth as the limited sound mix can provide to conform to the vintage video footage. It also serves the interview segments well, allowing Santana to come across as clear and comprehensible in his insights. English subtitles have also been included.
The only extras are four short featurettes that run less than ten minutes combined and are little more than extended interview footage: “Woodstock & US Festival” (2 minutes); “Signature Sound” (1 minute); “Santana’s Music” (3 minutes); and “Santana & Bill Graham” (1 minute).
The real draw of Santana: Live at US Festival is the electrifying live performance of one of the rock music’s most innovative groups at the height of their powers, but the contemporary interviews with Carlos Santana, as criminally brief as they are, serve as a fine garnish for one exquisite meal. Video and audio quality on this Blu-ray are fine and the bonus interview snippets combine to make it a definite recommendation for Santana fans.
