Eric Clapton-Live at Montreux 1986 (1986)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	1986
Running Time	112:35 (Case: 114)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (52:43)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Eagle Eye Media Rajon Vision	Starring	Eric Clapton Greg Phillinganes Nathan East Phil Collins
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	None Given

    Eric Clapton has been making music for many years now, from his time with John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers, through to Cream, Delaney and Bonnie, Blind Faith, Derek and The Dominoes, and his long and successful solo career. In the early 1980s, however, his career had begun to stagnate with a couple of less successful albums including Money & Cigarettes (not a bad album in my view) and Behind the Sun (a quite ordinary album in my view). His career picked up again later in the 1980s with the release of the Journeyman album. It kick-started his renaissance, which continued with the Unplugged album and others, including From The Cradle. Interestingly, many of the live DVDs that have been released come from this intervening period, such as this one from 1986. Live at Montreux was recorded at the Montreux Casino on July 10, 1986 as part of the Montreux Jazz Festival.

    The show features his standard band of the time, Nathan East on bass, Greg Phillinganes on keyboards and Phil Collins (yes that Phil Collins) on drums. Unlike some of his other appearances at the festival, this gig is definitely not a jazz show. It features his normal material including some Cream tracks, some Derek and The Dominoes, plus tunes from his previous album Behind The Sun and his forthcoming album August. If you are interested in a more jazz-styled appearance by Eric at the festival, check out my review of Legends - Live at Montreux 1997 . Eric Clapton completists should note that the track I Wanna Make Love to You does not appear on any of his studio albums, although it did make the Crossroads boxset.

    I would characterise the show as good but not great, featuring as it does a fairly normal set list for the time and nothing overly standout in the show itself. It's enjoyable and worth seeing for Eric Clapton fans, but it's not a show that will set the house alight. Casual viewers will probably be amused by the clothes, which make the band seem like extras from Miami Vice except for Phil Collins, who looks like he just stumbled out of bed. Both Phil Collins (In The Air Tonight) and Greg Phillinganes (Behind The Mask) take a lead vocal. As you would expect there is some tasty guitar work from Eric especially on I Shot The Sheriff, I Wanna Make Love to You, Let It Rain and Cocaine. The rest of the band do their jobs admirably, although Greg Phillinganes sounds a little too 'synth' for my liking at times.

    Well worth a look for fans of Eric's work, however, probably not the DVD to start with for non-fans.

Video

    The video quality is good but shows its early eighties roots.

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio non-16x9 enhanced which is, I would guess, the original aspect ratio. It is not 16x9 as stated on the box.

    The picture was reasonably sharp and clear but certainly nothing like more modern concert recordings. There was no evidence of low level noise. The bit rate was universally high which resulted in little discernible grain or macro-blocking.

    The colour was quite good without being overly vibrant. There were sine comet trails and flaring from shiny objects such as the guitar strings.

    Artefacts included some minor aliasing such as on a mic stand, one spot of microphony at 74:43 and some minor tape tracking at 79:20 .

    There are no subtitles.

    The layer change occurs at 52:43 and caused a significant pause. Luckily, it was placed between tracks.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is pretty good considering the age of the recording.

    This DVD contains three soundtrack options: a dts 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 1536 Kb/s, a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s and a PCM 2.0 Stereo soundtrack encoded at 1536 Kb/s. The dts was quite significantly superior to the other two tracks with a much fuller, more defined sound and significantly better bass. Having said that, it was still quite muddy by comparison to more modern recordings. The Dolby Digital track was muddier than the dts. The PCM was roughly equivalent to the Dolby Digital but obviously without the immersion.

    The singing came across quite clearly.

    The surround speakers added quite a bit of atmosphere which generated a quite immersive sound.

    The subwoofer was used quite a lot, especially on the dts track.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu includes motion and music and was similar in design to others in the series.

Booklet

    The booklet features an essay about the show and the tour it was included in, plus some photos and a reproduction of the Festival poster for 1986.

    This disc has been released in the same format in Region 1.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is good.

    A booklet is the only extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall