Santana: Supernatural Live

• Cat.no: IX 9711 STUKD
• Cert: E
• Running time: 88 minutes
• Year: 2000
• Pressing: 2000
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 14
• Sound: DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: 9 languages available
• Fullscreen: 4:3
• 16:9-enhanced: No
• Macrovision: No
• Disc Format: DVD 9
• Price: £19.99
• Extras : Scene index, Music Videos, Carlos Santana Interview and Photo Gallery,Carlos Santana Biography, Behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage, Featurette, Song Lyrics,Fan Club Information

  Director/Producer :

  Joel Gallen

Santana: Supernatural Liveis a concert billed as “An evening with Carlos Santana and Friends” and itaccompanies the recent multi-million-selling and award-winning non-live same-titledalbum which has brought the man back to the fore.

Filled with many an upbeat and calypso-sounding tune, everyone on stage certainly seemsto be enjoying themselves, particularly Carlos himself even if he is starting to look likea dodgy 70s porn star and he’s joined by such dignitaries as singer-songwriter SarahMcLachlan, a woman for whom I’ll never understand why anyone buys any of her recordsLauryn Hill and Rob Thomas, the man whose distinctive voice you hear onSmooth and everyone comes back on stage for the final number.

Only a brief time has been spent in the singles chart, with a recent revival, the charthistory to October 2000 is as follows :

Sep 74No.27Samba Pa TiOct 77No.11She’s Not ThereNov 78No.53Well All RightMar 80No.57All I Ever WantedApr 00No. 3Smooth

The picture quality is very good with zero artifacts, but it loses a little in theway of sharpness by being converted from NTSC material. Presented mostly in fullscreen,with the occasional piece in matted widescreen (to about 15:9), albeit mainly for interviews,the average bitrate is a superb 8.19Mb/s, often peaking over 9Mb/s.

The sound is everything you’d expect with both DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracksavailable, although if you were at the concert yourself all the instruments would bein front of you. On DVD it sounds like you’re in the middle of the stage with all speakersemanating some sort of sound.

1. (Da Le) Yaleo
2. Love of My Life
3. Angel
4. Put Your Lights On
5. Africa Bamba
6. Do You Like the Way
7. Migra8. Day of Celebration
9. Victory is Won
10. Maria Maria
11. Apache
12. Smooth/Dame Tu Amor
13. Gypsy Queen/Oye Como Va
14. ENCORE: Make Somebody Happy/Right On Be Free

Subtitles :These are available in 10 languages: German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian,Danish, Finnish, Portuguese and Dutch. However, there’s no English option available and thesubtitles only cover the chatty bits (i.e. anything said between the songs, but none ofthe lyrics), which is ridiculous. And there’s more :First up comes the Behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage, six minutes of a run-throughfor the cool sax solo on track 11 (Apache), a look at how the album came together in the8-minute Supernatural Featurette and 4 Music Videos: Smooth, Maria Maria,Put Your Lights On and Corazon Espinado (these four in vanilla surround sound).

The 19-minute Carlos Santana Interview and Photo Gallery plays the former over thesame repetitive latter, while the Song Lyrics section is a real shame. Yes all ofthem are there, BUT why are they only hear and NOT IN THE CONCERT?!