Sad news: The music world mourns the loss of Ray Manzarek (74), founding Member and keyboarder of The Doors, White Zombie drummer Phil Buerstatte (44) and Uriah Heep bassist Trevor Bolder (63). R.I.P.!
German Hardrockers BERSERKER will donate 18.000€ to the Berlin cancer charity for children on May 25. November 2011 BERSERKER front man Schröder was diagnosed with cancer, now he is cancer-free. In 2012 the band collected money for this charity at their concerts and will also continue to do so in the future. Slayer´s Jeff Hanneman is dead: he passed away at about 11AM on May 2nd near his Southern California home because of liver failure due to an infection after a spider bite. R.I.P. Jeff!
The Siberian Jay music video "I´m Holding" featuring Mikko Sirén from Apocalyptica on drums - we reported about the videoshoot in our "1h with" Special - can be watched here: http://youtu.be/C-hSNurZVcs
Carlos Santana has been on the stage already since the 60´s and thus there´s already lots and lots of material on DVD -„Viva Santana!“, „Supernatural – Live“, „Sacred Fire“, „Live 2004 – ain´t got the blues“ or „Broadcasting Live“, for instance. One could be sceptical and ask if a new DVD or Blue-Ray is really necessary. After about 200 minutes the positive answer is there as „Santana - Greatest Hits: Live at Montreux 2011“ offers a lot of new material.
Apart from the evergreens like „Black Magic Woman“, „Back in Black“ and “Oye Como Va“, there are new re-interpreted hits, like „Maria Maria“ and „Sunshine Of Your Life“ from his latest album, Guitar Heaven". There are hardly any song wishes left after the eleven strong band go through his production. Personally I found that there were too many solo-features from the single musicians, who lost themselves a bit; on the other and they played just perfectly, so this would be a lot better for other listeners. Apart from Santana´s wife, Cindy Blackmann, who plays drums by Lenny Kravitz, there were also two musicians from The Allman Brothers.
There was close to nothing to complain as far as the light and sound quality go, but this isn´t quite 100% live because if I am not mistaken, there was some amount of post-production. When the show is post-polished too much, the live-feeling is a bit rubbed off.
There are very nice interviews with the man himself and his wife as well as behind-the-scene features in the bonus material. A bit more would have been nice.
All in all, „Greatest Hits: Live at Montreux 2011“ is the best DVD / Blue Ray from Santana. The only minus points are the limited bonus material, the somewhat long solo features and -in my opinion- too perfect sound. AS far as Santana fans go, this is a must and for those, who just like his music, it´s a nice collection of the 65-year old music legend.
