Product: Santana - Live by Request (2005)
Rating: 5.0
Great As Always!
If you enjoy Carlos Santana, there are three DVD's to get: Supernatural Live, Sacred Fire, and now, Santana, Live by request. This DVD gives you a very true look at what most Santana concerts are like(with the exception of the varios guest performers). Concert videos are great in that, they show how well performers perform in real-time settings. Any garage band can make a video but when you're in front of a live audience, that's a different story.Good camera work, nice angles, good sound mixing and a very professional overall production. I would have liked to have seen an additional half hour but it was put together by A&E; for TV so there's your time limits. Glossy but not over produced.I've heard people comment that he sounds the"same" over the years. What these people don't realize is Santana has crafted "his sound". No one else sounds like Carlos Santana, hearing just one sustained note, you can tell right away it's him. Carlos' sound basically is, a choice of three or four PRE Santana I guitars(sorry kids, the PRS guitars he uses are nothing like the Santana models available at the local Guitar Center). Paul Reed Smith probably set up & tweaked the guitars personally. For amps, he has two Dumble Overdrive Reverb heads plugged into two BrounSoun Cabs each with four ToneTubby Hemp Cone speakers and an original Mesa Boogie Mark I head plugged into a single 12" Altec speaker in a square cabinet. For effects, (he uses very few), an Ibenez Tube-Screamer, an old Mutron Wah pedal, and rumor has it, a T-Rex Replicator delay pedal. The rest is pure musical talent.If you've followed his career, you see a definite evolution in his playing style. It is "not the same old stuff". He has amazing feel for the music, he knows when to turn-it-up on his solos and when to temper it. Listen closely, his solos are all different. He'll incorporate his unique styling licks but it's not like the same solos played over and over again that you hear from so many other current guitarists.This DVD is really an accurate look at what his concerts are like. He plays often here in his native Northern California and most of concerts are in smaller, more intimate, theatre venues as in this video. "Santana, Live Request" is definitely a niceaddition to your music collection.