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Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter

Ringo Starr DVD: "Ringo and His New All-Starr Band"

Sleeve and track listing

WinMedia DVDUK005D (5 stars!)

  1. Photograph
  2. Act Naturally
  3. Logical Song
  4. Cleveland Rocks
  5. Back Off Boogaloo
  6. I Wanna Be Your Man
  7. You're Sixteen
  8. Yellow Submarine
  9. Things Can Only Get Better
  10. Lucky Man
  11. Give A Little Bit
  12. No One Is To Blame
  13. The No-No Song
  14. It Don't Come Easy
  15. Glamorous Life
  16. Take The Long Way Home
  17. All The Young Dudes
  18. Don't Go Where The Road Don't Go
  19. With A Little Help From My Friends

Region-free (PAL) DVD. 16:9 picture (but see text)

Review

In the summer of 2001, Ringo Starr put together an All-Starr Band and toured the States. He does this every two to three years, getting various "name" musicians together and "kicking some" from coast to coast. Every musician gets to play their own material as well - it's not just Beatles and Ringo material, although obviously that predominates the set.

So, in the summer of 2001 we saw possibly the most diverse collection of musicians you could get. There was Roger Hodgson of Supertramp on guitar, Greg Lake (ELP) on bass, Ian Hunter (Mott The Hoople) on rhythm guitar, Howard Jones on keyboards and Sheila E (Prince) on drums. Could this work? You bet it could...

Right from the off you know this is going to be a good show. The band work well together, Roger playing some tasty lead guitar (and pretty mean keyboards on his own material as well), Greg Lake is laid back and businesslike, Howard Jones (who is from my home town, dontcha know) is at home playing both rock and 80's synth-pop. As for Sheila E - what a drummer! Absolutely bloody brilliant.

Does any one track stand out? Not really, the whole lot is good. Everyone should know the Beatles songs, and the solo Ringo material as well. Enough of Ian's fans are present to know that Cleveland Rocks is "audience participation time", and Dudes goes down a storm. For the rest of the show Ian is content to be stage left playing tasteful rhythm guitar.

If you like Ian, then get this DVD - despite only getting two of his own numbers to perform he's still on screen enough to satisfy you. But rock/pop fans in general will love it as well. Something for everyone may be a bit cliched, but it certainly applies here.

The only criticism I have is that the picture is not true widescreen. Instead, it is letterboxed - a 16:9 picture in a 4:3 frame (with black bars top and bottom). Some TVs will adjust to this automatically, but others you may need to fiddle with the TV's settings. Why can't people do these things properly in the first place?

Highly recommended. There is also a CD of this show - again, well worth the money.