Search - Viva Santana on DVD

Record company blows it again

M. Barrows | 09/14/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The good: nice to have some older footage of Santana since there is nothing else available from the 70's and it's cool to see Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon in the pre-Journey days. Some of the footage is really crisp and clear and some nice black and white footage of the early stuff.

The bad: Why does there have to be audio commentary over the music? I want to see the song in it's entirety, not with a bunch of pointless talking over it. You want an audio commentary? Fine. Offer it as an option to be turned on or off through the menu, but don't ruin the songs and performances with it. In this case, it's the first version of Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen (and this is the "classic" band lineup). There is hardly any footage out there of this era of Santana and to ruin it by cutting in with audio is sacrilegious. What's worse is the copy of the DVD I have has some audio dropouts. I can't tell if it's inherent to the original recording (could be since this is old footage) or if it is a defect with the DVD. Finally, the worst thing is that they take footage of Santana from different shows and splice it into one video of BMW/GQ and the editing is horrible. They don't even try to smooth the edits and the mix jumps from acceptable to bad depending on the show plus it's jarring to see clean footage followed by rawer footage. I could have lived with that IF they had used one audio take of the songs instead of different ones. This alone is enough to take away two stars.

Maybe one day the record companies will try and do a better job of restoring old footage (it can be done, look at the Led Zep DVD)and presenting a better quality product. This is not one of those times and once again, they have slapped something together and rushed it out with no forethought to quality. I had to give it three stars though just because there is no other old footage commercially available. Just be warned that there are problems with the DVD."

Disappointing, but not surprising

David Fynan | 09/16/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"A hodgepodge collection of performances from Santana from throughout the years. Much of these videos I've seen before, and chances are if you're a fan of Santana, you've seen some of them too. The only difference is, the annoying commentary during songs. It's not that I don't enjoy listening to Carlos talk (he certainly has a way with words), but not in the middle of a song. I'd rather hear him play than talk. This occurs in just about every song.



The splicing of about a dozen different performances of Black Magic Woman was definitely bizarre and confusing to the viewer. I wasn't expecting much from this DVD (despite a fantastic track list, I was expecting disappointment) so I'm not too upset. But the commentary during songs irritates me to no end (take a look at my Allman Brothers Live at Great Woods review). I'm still waiting for a really good DVD of Santana performing some of these great songs."

I LOVE IT !!

Roy E | San Diego,Ca USA | 05/12/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A must have for any Carlos Santana fan. Great insight to his life !!!"