Ford winds down, or maybe I should say winds UP, the show with two of Supernatural's best numbers. "Deaf, Dumb & Blind" is a breezy pop number, featuring some of his finest vocals, and could have easily been a top-40 pop hit if given its due chance. But I'm not holding my breath to hear any Robben Ford on the radio any time soon. At least not until I get satellite radio. His first encore featured a lively cover of the Paul Butterfield classic "Lovin' Cup", which was certainly one of the show's highlights.
I liked the fact that the producer left in most of the wild applause between encores as the appreciative audience begged for more. It helps to make you forget that you are only watching from your living room, and not there at the club. Ford answers the call with a final encore that featured another Supernatural song, the gentle ballad "You Got Me Knockin'". I found this to be very anti-climactic, considering how exiting the build-up was to get to this point. "Knockin'" is a decent blues-ballad that would have fit nicely at the half-way point of the show, but it killed the excitement that the first encore had generated. He should have dug out one of his more electrifying classics such as "Talk To Your Daughter" to close the show properly.
The production quality of this DVD was surprisingly good. The show was filmed using four cameras, and the talented crew did a superb job capturing the intimate feel of this small club, while giving you plenty of essential close-ups of Ford's remarkable fretwork. The audio was provided in both Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and PCM stereo formats that each produced a clear and powerful mix. The only unusual element of the mix, when using a 5.1 surround sound setup, is that the instrumentation and vocals were very dominant in the center channel, providing what seemed like about 50% of the overall sound output, while the front-side and rear-surround speakers only provided ambience at a much lower level. It still sounded excellent, but you would think it could have sounded better with a more typical surround mix. The only special feature included was an enlightening 24-minute interview with Ford as he discussed how he got started in the business and some of the legendary musicians he has worked with.
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