Bruce Springsteen's Storytellers is now already a legendary performance by the man and his guitar. Now that this complete performance should be out officially later this year this title might lose its appetite if it wasn't for the other two shows. This Dual layer DVD gives a complete overview of Springsteen's acoustic performances over the last two decades. Storytellers initially started back in 1986 with Bruce's first full acoustic performance at the Bridge Benefit Concert organized by Neil Young. Bruce had been off the road for over a year and was working on his upcoming new album that would lean more to Nebraska than BITUSA. Instead of opting for a full blown E-Street Band performance, Bruce just invited Danny Federici, plus Nils Lofgren to join him - who also performed at the Benefit show as a solo artist. It is one of Bruce's most memorable shows ever. A classic, stunning performance by a confident and inspired Boss! This DVD was taken from a remastered, recently discovered pro shot print of this show. So what you have on this disc is the highest quality version available for your watching pleasure. A crisp colorful picture and excellent sound remastered from an amazing HiFi Stereo Soundboard CD source. Filmed sober but with maximum inpact the version and story of "Seeds" gives you the chills. The first ever stripped down and distorted "BITUSA" is amazing, the acapella "You Can look...", the haunting "Fire"...a must have!
Ten years later Bruce returns to "The Bridge"......less confident. After the Human Touch/Lucky Town fiasco Bruce is trying to find his way in the 90's and comes up with an album even muddier and darker than Nebreska. To premiere this material at The Bridge was a risk and the reaction of the crowd is different than 10 years earlier when the Boss was at his successful peak with BITUSA and Live 75-85. Bruce appears nervous, asks for quiet, his half bearded face and eyes are masked by a baseball hat and starting with a darker "Seeds" than in 86 the tone is set. "Adam Raised A Cain" is a crowd pleasure although hardly recognizable from its initial incarnation. The premiere of "Sinaloa Cowboys" is next and gives the crowd a taste of what to expect. Reactions are mixed. "Point Blank" is stunning and reveals the true nature of the song in this haunting version. After "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" things lighten up and so does the Boss, when he's joined by Neil Young for the final encores. A remarkable performance! This pro shot show is in the best quality on this disc that I've seen it though not off the master. The sound problems were at the actual performance (as the weather (stormy night in Cali) was causing problems with the PA) and are no faults in the disc. The sound is good I'd say an 8, same for the picture quality!
All In All A stunning DVD.....the title storytellers is now maybe misleading as this is only a third and in time maybe a quarter of the actual disc and the other footage is what you should really buy this DVD for as the content is stunning. Sound, picture and performance wise.
Since this is a DVD9 with a higher capicity the performances are on the disc in the highest possible quality with no annoying compression of artifacts!
