Review of Crosby, Stills And Nash: The Acoustic Concert

Introduction

David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash have been together as a band (along with some time member Neil Young) since 1968. Crosby was a member of The Byrds, Nash was a member of the Hollies and Stills was a member of Buffalo Springfield (as was Young of course). Their blend of acoustic/pop/rock/folk struck a key with the audience of the late 1960s and they became overnight successes. However, the next 35 years tell stories of splits, reforming, splits, reforming, drug addiction, splits, prison, reforming, splits, liver troubles, reforming, splits and reforming...

They have sold truckloads of records, racking up loads of awards along the way, and are all members of the the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. The perormance on this DVD was filmed in 1991 in San Francisco. The tracklisting is outlined up above for you.

Video

A 1990s NTSC TV transfer. Yes, that`s right, NTSC. In a curious move, but one that Warner often seem to take with region 2 DVDs, this disc will only be playable by those of you who have a TV that supports NTSC (or a DVD player that converts it). As for the picture itself, it looks exactly like you would expect it to look - not bad for an NTSC picture but could be better. It`s 4:3 and it looks like a TV recording of a concert in the 1990s. There are no exciting or outstanding features about it.

Audio

A choice of DD2.0 stereo or a DD5.1 soundtrack, both of which are not bad, but they never blow you away. Given the age of the recording, the DD5.1 soundtrack is a remix of the original concert audio and it`s a reasonable effort, using the front 3 channels to reasonable effect, as well as punting some sounds to the rear speakers. Many other music discs have raised the bar much higher than this though, and it takes quite a bit of effort to compete with some of the very best music DVDs.

Features

Not a thing.

Conclusion

From Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:-

acoustic - adjective - of, relating to, or being a musical instrument whose sound is not electronically modified

So now that we`ve got that clear I can very easily claim that the title of this DVD is fraudulent. A Fender Telecaster is definitely not an acoustic instrument, since it is very definitely an instrument whose sound is electronically modified. And you can quite clearly see and hear a Fender Telecaster being played during this so-called "acoustic" performance.

So it`s acoustic up to a point. Some songs definitely are acoustic through and through, but there are quite a lot where an electric guitar is very definitely being used in the performance. I know that this might sound a bit picky but the whole point of acoustic releases is that they are just that. You`re not supposed to cheat otherwise you cheat the audience. I expected a great acoustic performance, and whilst there were some good ones on a few tracks, the continued appearance of electric instruments just kept getting up my nose.

If you`re a fan of the band then you might want to pick this DVD up, as it`s a good chance to hear some different performances of their work, and the sound quality is reasonable. I don`t think it will attract many casual viewers/listeners though. I had hoped that it would be a DVD that I`d want to go back to and keep listening to, but at the end of the day I`ll probably never listen to it again.