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Customer Reviews of Traffic - The Last Great Traffic Jam (with Bonus CD)

Best Traffic Jam I've Experienced
Had I read all the reviews before buying this DVD, I might have had pause for thought. Luckily Traffic has long been one of my favourite bands and I ordered it after reading only one or two reviews. And I have to agree with most of those comments - the visuals serve only to detract from what is the best Traffic music I own - and I have everything by Traffic. <
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>However, I don't find it affects my enjoyment at all, except for the occasional thought it could be so much better. This remains one of my most-listened to and most-enjoyed DVDs. I do watch it with my finger constantly poised on the forward button on the remote for when the dialogue starts, but most times its so short and my reaction time so slow that its over before I can FF. <
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>I also find myself asking, when I see only Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, what makes this really Traffic? Steve Winwood is clearly the major vision within the band, and I guess as long as he decides to call himself Traffic, its Traffic, because Jim Capaldi's influence seems negligible. Oddly, Steve's solo music is so bland. <
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>I also find myself comparing this DVD most favourably to the like of Pink Floyd's recent offering, Pulse. There, I find the light show and cinemagraphics most disturbing, and in comparison what's happening in Traffic is at least contributing to the vitality of the music. <
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>It's a pity there's actually so little Traffic music out there. I hear comments about another Video, and I hope that comes out in DVD one of these days. <
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>The only low point for me is Dear Mr Fantasy. Although my first introduction to Traffic was Low Spark back in 1974, it was Dear Mr Fantasy that really grabbed me, and remains one of my favourite songs by them to this day. This version doesn't do it justice, which I really think only shines as a studio track. I've often wondered if I should make a greater effort to get familiar with Grateful Dead - I've tried a couple of times without success - but Jerry Garcia's lacklustre performance is enough to stop that particular impulse.

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Oh, for MORE "TRAFFIC JAMS!" - This Deserves 10 Stars!
In '94, Steve Winwood evidentally felt the need (thank The Lord) to leave his synthesizers alone for awhile, and he hooked up with one other original Traffic member, drummer Jim Capaldi ("where was Dave Mason," one wonders, but I guess that's quibbling...). And I DO seem to remember an album, whoops, "CD," but no Winwood/Traffic/even Procol Harum enthusiasts I knew had or even heard it. No matter, Winwood and Capaldi subsequently decided to take the retro trip, and they recruited "When The Eagle Flies" bassist/extraordinare, Rosko Gee, a couple of (then) unknowns, Percussionist Walfredo Reyes Jr (...oh, man...Rebop must've looked down from On High and smiled, this Cat could WELL have been "channelling" Keith Moon or BJ Wilson - or MY favorite drummer, Alice DeBuhr of Fanny! - for all the grinning intensity he displayed!), and a brilliant Keyboardist/Guitarist, Mike McEvoy, who quite handily played any and all "Winwood" Guitar/Keyboard parts-to-the-note-perfectly when Stevie played "Lead." And I just can not wait to say this: the sound was - and IS, on the CD - PHENOMINAL! Tight as a tick, and the sheer joy they felt in performing was CONTAGIOUS! This time out though, Winwood used a Strat (except, of course, for "John Barleycorn"), but in truth, I much prefer the sound he got out of that wonderful old green Firebird on the "Traffic/Santa Monica" VHS-thing...but, yeah, that's another place and another time... And, no: I haven't forgotten: for the Sax/Flute/aux-Keyboard place left vacant by Chris Wood, Randall Bramblett, late of Sea Level (and incidentally, the..."close relative" of a creep that fired me from a gig sometime late "last century"), performed quite, QUITE admirably. Indeed, like the liner notes to the CD say, "Bramblett's work...pays homage to Wood but yet retains its own identity and special flavor." Couldn't've said it better myself. The material, though, is the JOY: "Pearly Queen," "Glad"(w/o "Freedom Rider" this time out, though), Capaldi's "Light Up Or Leave Me Alone," where he introduces all the band members - and where, for ONCE, all individual band members' little...solo spots are - well, TRANSCENDENT - not "masturbatory" as is usually the correct adjective applied to a "solo spots." Yes, they even do "Low Spark" quite wonderfully, too, and it's really kind of interesting to see/hear them switch off with Reyes playing the Jim Gordon/"Kit"-Drum part and Capaldi, the Rebop/Conga part. And the closing number, Winwood's "Gimme Some Lovin'," that he originally performed with the Spencer Davis Group is a sheer joy too...almost makes you forget that Belushi absolutely truncated it for "the Blues Brothers." However, in the interest of "sheer journalistic honesty" (dig THAT, Cameron Crowe!), I have to add a sad..."caveat," though: when Traffic tries to perform their signature "Dear Mr. Fantasy," for some inexplicable reason, they trot out some obese hippie that untimately turns out to be...Jerry Garcia. And Garcia tries, pathetically, to play a bottleneck-slide guitar part, but it's almost sad, knowing that he'd be taking a dirt bath within a year. Regardless: I honestly have not enjoyed a music DVD this much since I got my DVD copy of "Gimme Shelter." And until a DVD resurfaces of the original Duane/Gregg/Dicky/Berry/Jaimoe/Butch Allman Brothers, I DARE anyone to do better than THAT...

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Musically Thrilling, but Video Record of this Immaculate Show a little disappointing
I remember this show very well.Just as the sun dipped out of sight the stage lights went on and the band blasted into "Pearly Queen" and "Medicated Goo" and it was like muscial heaven hearing this stuff actually played live (after hearing it so many times on CD). The only way to really experience TRAFFIC is live and this tour was the last chance to do that (now that Wood and Capaldi are both gone). TRAFFIC's sound remains unique, its never really been imitated. And this band has never received much radio attention (save the occasional "Dear Mr. Fantasy") and though everyone knows who Steve Winwood is, a lot of people still don't know TRAFFIC's music. But thats fine with me, they are like a well kept secret and this allowed us fans to be able to actually afford tickets to see them when they came through our towns in the summer of '94. Another advantage of this bands notoriety-lesness is that none of these songs sound dated. In fact much of the TRAFFIC catalogue (with the exception of a few psychedelic numbers on their first two albums)sounds timeless (I'm thinking here especially of the JOHN BARLEYCORN and WHEN THE EAGLE FLIES albums). Masterfully played and highly evocative folk and jazz as well as good ol' blues-based rock does not date. Hearing these styles played next to each other as well as mixed together is as exciting as music gets. I must say,though, that the sole number played from their new album FAR FROM HOME called "Mozambique" sounds a bit too much like SANTANA. That doesn't mean its not a good song and I love SANTANA but it didn't make me want to buy FAR FROM HOME. <
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>I was not a first generation TRAFFIC fan but I became interested in the band in the early 90's so this tour came along at just the right time for me. I've never been a Steve Winwood fan and his solo stuff just seems weak and souless to me. I would say his solo stuff sounds like a watered down radio friendly TRAFFIC or a TRAFFIC without the imagination but to my ears his solo stuff just doesn't sound like TRAFFIC at all. With the SPENCER DAVIS GROUP and with BLIND FAITH (and a live DVD of BLIND FAITH is now available as well) and especially with TRAFFIC, however, Winwood made music that is absolutely unique and has that unforgettable magic to it that few folk/rock/jazz/blues groups or groups of any kind ever capture. <
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>This was really a great show, and the art work that was displayed behind the band was perfect, mysterious and a bit surreal though in a very appealing way, so the show was evocative to the ear and the eye. <
>Plus it was summertime, outside, and a river flowed quietly behind the stage as the band played. I don't think I stopped grinning through the whole set. <
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>That said I was somewhat disappointed with this DVD as it just didn't match my own memory of this show. The filmmaking here is just plain amateurish so as a collection of great songs this works, but as a concert artifact I think its much less succesful. That amateurism might have worked had the filmmakers simply employed handmade cameras for that would have created an improvised spontaneous feel to go along with the spontneous improvised music. The filmakers should have taken a more subdued, as well as maybe a bit more avant-garde approach, but, instead, the filmamkers got busy and decided to decorate or trash a perfectly good concert video with some unforgivably cheesy and painfully obvious special effects and visual metaphors (traffic lights, time-lapse highway travel, traffic)which were nowhere near as subtle and evocative as the graphics that adorned the stage. These 'special' effects were just not that special, and they give the video all of the visual mystery and excitement of a local televison commercial. The idea, apparently, was to share with the DVD audience the feel of traveling with the band but the filmmakers seem to forget that what we want to watch over and over is not the interviews and sound bites and jump-cuts to band members getting on tour buses or hanging out in hotel rooms(unless its a band that is doing something that we want to see like say the Stones in '72 ) but these guys when offstage just seem like ordinary guys who are not really interested in tearing it up. The music itself is what counts, the musicians say so themselves, and thats what we want too, the music. Lets face it Winwood is a genius onstage (so long as he's surrounded by great players that allow him to jam) but a dynamic off-stage presence he's not, so he's just not that interesting to follow around. Capaldi, on the other hand, has great camera presence and his character and humor really come across. His mugging for the camera is on occasion pretty funny. But, on several occasions, the filmakers cut-away from musical jams in progress in order to give us more of this stuff and this is sheer madness. When you buy a live album or a live DVD (especially one of a band that is known for its awesome jam potential) the one thing that you do not want is for those jams to be interrupted or edited or interefered with in any way. This music is sacred so light up, enjoy, and leave it alone. Really not cool of the vidoegraphers to cut-away mid-jam ever for any reason! Note to future concert vidoegraphers: keep camera focused on the band, watching them play is plenty of entertainment. If you want to cut-away occasionally to show crowd shots thats fine so long as its a shot of a dancing girl soaking-up-the-music-and-sun, but no cut-aways that involve cutting songs short (as these filmmakers do in the middle of "Glad"). Also probably would have been best to leave Jerry Garcia out of the "Dear Mr. Fantasy" sequence, Jerry just wasn't feeling the song, so why do we need to watch Jerry not Feelin' all that Alright. I love Jerry but I don't want a video record of this particular moment which was not one of his best. <
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>I am guessing that this DVD was the work of more than one filmmaker because occasionally it does achieve that ground level and grassroots feel that we want from a live performance that we attended and have more than fond memories of. Of course the people we see at the concert on this video are not the ones we saw when we were there (our own absence from the procedings is maybe why concert videos always seem to be mssing some key ingredient) but it is nice to be reminded that part of the concert experience is what happens before the show, and what happens offstage in the audience during the show while sitting on the grass among strangers who are nonetheless feeling the vibe along with ya. <
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>No better show opener than "Pearly Queen" and no better show closer than the TRAFFIC version (complete with long drum build up) of "Gimme Some Lovin'".....lots of good stuff inbetween as well..."40,000 headmen" & "John Barleycorn"..... <
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>At the show I saw I do seem to remember hearing "Empty Pages" and "Dream Gerard" in addition to the rest of the set list on this DVD. So, what's up videographers? <
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>By the way these performances sound virtually identical to the live versions of these songs on WELCOME TO THE CANTEEN and that is not a bad thing since that is one of the best live albums I've ever heard. If you are new to TRAFFIC and don't really want or need a concert DVD but want to experience the live TRAFFIC then WELCOME TO THE CANTEEN is the way to go. CANTEEN has "Pearly Queen" and "Medicated Goo" as well as "40,000 Headmen" and "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and Gimme Some Lovin'" but it also has three Dave Mason songs so you get "Feelin' Alright", "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave", and "Sad and Deep as You."