Wednesday, March 29, 2006

A bit of Marley confusion...

Bob Marley and the Wailers Live! is one of my favorite CDs, hands down... I know all the music critics say stuff like "Live albums are for hardcore fanatics" and stuff like that, but this was actually my first in-depth introduction to Bob Marley. I love a lot of Marley's music, but I'm more of a casual fan. I don't own everything he's ever released, but I listen regularly to this and a few of his studio releases.

I love the energy and freshness on Live!. This album was recorded in London in 1975, and it doesn't sound like he's worn down or tired, and the audience is right there with him. I've got the Live At the Roxy CD from a 1976 performance, and it's good, but it feels like a completely different band. Live! just has this amazing energy, and by comparison, Live At the Roxy feels much more laid-back and almost lethargic. I play both of them to suit different moods, but Live! gets played a lot more often.


So I was walking through Best Buy the other day, and I had $20 burning a hole in my wallet. Usually I just stroll through the CD section and then over to the regular DVD section, but I found myself in the music DVD section. Imagine my surprise when I saw Bob's Live! cover peering up from a DVD...

Like I said earlier, I'm a casual fan at best. I couldn't have told you where or when the Live! CD was recorded, so the addition of the small text "at the Rainbow" on the DVD cover art meant little or nothing to me. I just assumed that this was the concert I had on CD. Not so...

Yeah, it's great, but just not what I was expecting. The performance is really good. My only qualm DVD-wise is the way the extras are implemented.

But the real treasure here is the second disc with the BBC documentary Caribbean Nights from 1984. I'm a music documentary whore. I was the guy watching all those Behind the Music episodes on VH1 when they'd run a BtM marathon. This documentary does a great job of showing where Marley came from, and interviewing friends and relatives.

With the documentary and concert, this DVD serves as a nice complement to the Legends DVD. Just don't be misled by the cover art.

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