VIVA SANTANA!

Soon after the release of the 2-CD set Viva Santana! a video version followed. It contains live footage from TV and concerts. The earliest work is from 1969 (The Ed Sullivan Show with Persuasion featuring psychedelic screen projections) and a live concert in the USA in 1970 with Evil Ways. Then we move chrononically from The Seventies into The Eighties with lots of 'classics' like Black Magic Woman (exciting blend of different concert footage), I Love You Much Too much (beautiful pink spotlights on Santana with his moving guitar play) and of course Soul Sacrefice with the thrilling Woodstock version featuring split screen images, the 16 years old drummer Mike Shrieve with a stunning solo, an emotional Santana, great percussion work and Gregg Rolie with his splendid Hammond organ solo. But the most striking performance is another Black Magic Woman version when the band plays under a roof but the crowd suffered from pouring rain, everybody is soaked but keep on dancing and screaming because Santana and his band works their socks off to cheer up the crowd, great scenes! So there is plenty to enjoy but unfortunately the production team decided to blend the images with a voice over from Carlos Santana, telling his stories in a quite dull way. Nonetheless, for me this didn't spoil all pleasure but I was not really happy when Carlos started another story during wonderful musical moments like the Hammond solo in Black Magic Woman or the guitar solo in I Love You Much Too Much.