Thinnest Of Air captures Blues Traveler at their annual 4th of July show at the Red Rocks Amphitheater, in Morrison, Colorado. This has been a tradition for the band, and their fans, for over ten years now. This is a documentary style concert DVD, and features loads of behind the scenes footage interspersed throughout the song performances. One the bad side, there is no "concert only" option, which would skip over all of the behind the scenes stuff, but, all of the behind the scenes segments are each assigned their own chapter, which makes it easier to skip past them and get right to the song performances.
I was only a mild Blues Traveler fan before purchasing this DVD, and still remain so after viewing it a few times. To begin with, I was never a huge fan of the whole "jam band" style. I can barely tolerate the Grateful Dead, I enjoy the Allman Brothers and Gov't Mule, and Phish has some decent stuff, but I certainly don't go out of my way too often to listen to this type of music. Blues Traveler are one of the better jam bands around, and they have their own distinctive sound--thanks to the virtuoso harmonica playing of John Popper. In fact, Popper really is Blues Traveler. His vocals are powerful and unique, and his harmonica playing is phenomenal. I think that any of the other band members, even Chan Kinchla, could be replaced and the band would not skip a beat.
Clocking in at well over three hours, and featuring 25 songs spread over two disks, this is one hell of a long DVD. Damn jam bands! They do give you your money's worth though. Blues Traveler's most recent album, Truth Be Told, gets the most play here with seven songs, and each of their earlier albums are represented by at least two songs. Most of the fan favorites are covered with two notable exceptions, "Runaround", and "But Anyway". The backstage footage showed how they choose teach night's setlist, from a master list of all of their songs, and how each show can vary drastically from the next. The behind the scenes stuff was mostly very entertaining, but they definitely showed way too much of Popper, half naked in his hotel room bed, chain smoking, and looking like a slob. He lost a ton of weight recently, but believe me, he's got some serious toning up to do. Ben Wilson and Tad Kinchla getting pedicures together, at a Korean nail salon, was pretty funny.
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