Santana IV<\/i> accomplished what was for many years just an idle fantasy\u2014reassembling the surviving members of the lineup that made two of Santana\u2019s very best albums, Abraxas<\/i> (1970) and Santana III<\/i> (1971). Said lineup features Gregg Rolie (keys & lead vocals) and Neal Schon (guitar), who would soon depart to form Journey, as well as Michael Shrieve (drums) and Michael Carabello (congas & percussion), along with Carlos Santana himself on lead guitar and vocals. The present-day incarnation of this lineup is rounded out by Karl Perazzo (timbales, percussion & vocals), Benny Rietveld (bass), and David K. Matthews (keys).<\/p>\n
The odd thing about the live show captured here\u2014besides the fact that it\u2019s the only live show this stellar lineup has played to date\u2014is that it happened before Santana IV<\/i> was even released. The audience must have been a little disoriented, then, hearting a track list that\u2019s evenly split between not-yet-released tunes from the new album and classic cuts from Santana<\/i> (1969), Abraxas<\/i>, and Santana III<\/i>\u2014in other words, a lot of very familiar music mixed in with a lot of completely unfamiliar music. <\/p>\n
Timing issues aside, the setlist here is pretty fantastic. And rather than suffering by contrast, putting energetic new songs like \u201cAnything You Want To Go\u201d and \u201cChoo Choo \/ All Aboard\u201d up against classic numbers like \u201cEverybody\u2019s Everything\u201d and \u201cOye Como Va\u201d only serves to underscore how seamlessly this lineup picked up right where it left off in 1972, melding Latin, soul, jazz and rock elements into its own uniquely tasty\u2014and fiery\u2014musical gumbo.<\/p>\n
There are concessions to age; back in the day, the percussion section workout \u201cSoul Sacrifice\u201d would have appeared mid-set or as an encore, rather than leading off as it does here. But these guys are all complete pros with chops miraculously intact. The biggest adjustment the band has to make is to Schon\u2019s role. The driving force behind the reunion, Schon was the young apprentice when he left, but returns a veteran bandleader with four decades of gained knowledge and pent-up desire to play the music of his roots again\u2014and maybe prove a thing or two to his old boss.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear this fresh dynamic fires up both men at times, as when they turn \u201cNobody To Depend On\u201d into a ferocious, gun-slinging guitar duel that\u2019s a blast to watch. A similar fraternal-competition dynamic also shows up in new tunes like the moody \u201cLeave Me Alone\u201d and the psychedelic blues-rock jam \u201cCaminando,\u201d while \u201cBlack Magic Woman \/ Gypsy Queen\u201d and \u201cOye Como Va\u201d find the pair trading off on the iconic solos Carlos created for the originals. At other times, Schon makes himself scarce in deference to the maestro; in addition to playing a very quiet rhythm guitar on a number of the older tunes, he doesn\u2019t even come on stage until midway through the third song (\u201cEvil Ways\u201d) and later disappears again so that Carlos can tackle \u201cSamba Pa Ti\u201d on his own.<\/p>\n
The other striking thing this album accomplishes is to remind you how much better Gregg Rolie is suited for this sort of passionate Latin-soul-rock hybrid than for the sort of slick, commercial AOR that Journey evolved into during the Steve Perry years. This feels like the music he was always meant to make, and he is on fire throughout, singing and playing better than ever. <\/p>\n
The encore section features very special guest and original soul man Ronald Isley on a pair of tasty, soulful \u201cpeace and love\u201d numbers he sang on Santana IV<\/i>, \u201cLove Makes The World Go Round\u201d and \u201cFreedom In Your Mind.\u201d The night closes out with a passionate run through the classic Santana jam \u201cToussaint L\u2019Ouverture,\u201d featuring scorching solos from Rolie, Perazzo, Schon, and of course Santana himself. <\/p>\n
After a couple of well-spent hours with this DVD (accompanied by a two-CD album with identical tracklist), the only question remaining is, why didn\u2019t this reunited lineup mount a full tour? All evidence suggests Schon would have worked around Journey\u2019s schedule to make it happen. No one on the outside knows for sure, of course, but the scuttlebutt\u2014backed up in subtle ways throughout this album\u2014is that Carlos gets itchy pretty quickly any time the spotlight isn\u2019t fully on him. Regardless, this set again renews the case for the Abraxas<\/i> \/ Santana III<\/i> band as one of the most dynamic and explosive musical units in rock history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":32905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5724],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-44678","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-santana","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44678"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44678"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}