I can think of nothing more disappointing than going back in time via video tape and seeing something I remembered cherishing when I was younger and finding it wanting. Things that I once thought funny not only don't make me laugh anymore, they are so un-funny I wonder why I had ever considered them humorous. This doesn't just apply to television shows and movies I once laughed at, but also books and music I remembered as being brilliant but that no longer shine with the same intensity they once did.

Part of it can be put down to whatever altered state of mind I might have been in during the time the memory comes from. It's really quite amazing what I realize I missed seeing or hearing the first time around when I see the same program sober at some later date. The reverse also applies in that's it's amazing how what I thought I saw and heard at one time no longer seems to exist.

Whatever the reason for it happening, there have been sufficient occasions recently when memories of an event have proven more entertaining than what actually happened such that I've started to grow nervous of trips into the past. While I've never been one to get all teary eyed with nostalgia over the good old days or want to return to my youth, it would still be nice to know that some of the things I enjoyed when I was younger have been able to stand the test of time.

It was with mixed feelings that I sat down to watch the DVD, Mink DeVille Live At Montreux 1982, just released by Eagle Rock Entertainment as part of their Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival series. I was pretty confident in my belief that the music would stand up to being as good as I remembered it being because the music that Mink DeVille's front man, Willy DeVille, has been producing recently has been great, but a whole bunch of times being been bitten can sure make you shy.

I needn't have worried. As soon as I heard the opening notes of the band's instrumental piece prior to Willy's entrance, I knew this was one time when the music was going to sound as good now as I remembered it sounding when I listened to Mink DeVille back in the seventies and early eighties. Ironically, it wasn't a configuration of the band that I was familiar with, as there were some people in it who hadn't been on any of the albums the band had released to that point. I hadn't known that Paul James, a Toronto, Canada Blues guitar player, had played with the Mink DeVille band until I saw this concert disc.

It doesn't seem to matter, though, who is in the band; the music is impeccable. From the moment they began to play the show's opening instrumental, "Harlem Nights," to the last chord of the last song fading away, they sounded like they had been playing with Willy, and that they had been together for decades.