Rainy Days

Yesterday it rained for most of the day. That gave us a great opportunity to watch the rest of the DVDs that I got for Christmas and my birthday. We had already watched Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock, Cream Royal Albert Hall and the Live Aid 4 disc set. What was left was Live8 4 disc set from July 2nd last year.

If you asked me which was my favourite it would have to be the Cream concerts at London closely followed by the Jimi Hendrix set at Woodstock.

Cream were all too short lived as a band. I never got to see them although I did watch the Farewell concert on television a few years ago. This re-union concert brings back Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker for four nights in May. The DVD set showcases the best performances of each song from those nights. Of course they are all much older and wiser men now and have had plenty of time to hone their skills. So as you might expect the quality of the recording is excellent. Most important though they look really pleased to be back together.

Watching the Jimi Hendrix set is amazing when you consider how long ago Woodstock was. The sound has been mixed by Jimi’s original engineer in 5.1 and 2.0 stereo which means that it is as good as you would get from a concert recorded now. The DVD shows the full uninterrupted set that Jimi played in its original sequence. As a bonus there is a never before seen performance of “Hear My Train A Comin”.

Live Aid and Live8 were of course great concerts with some memorable highlights. When you get to Disc 3 of Live8 Pink Floyd are re-united to play five of their best numbers starting with “Speak To Me” and finishing with “Comfortably Numb”. At Live Aid, Freddie Mercury and Queen have the Wembley audience eating out of their hands.