'Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Please welcome Jeff Shannon to High-Def Digest! I've highlighted Jeff's *EXTENSIVE* professional background in my introduction to the review. Let's just say we couldn't be more thrilled to have him reviewing for HDD!

Jeff has turned in a fantastic review of the 'Woodstock' Blu-ray, which he says will be the definitive home-video version of this film for many years to come. This Blu-ray has excellent video, extremely impressive audio, and tons of special features and exclusives. In short, this is a must own!

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1383/woodstock.html

[paaron46]

Welcome aboard Jeff! Great review.

[Landy]

Welcome Jeff, and fantastic review!

[Fisher & Sons]

Welcome aboard. Nice review. Interesting and lucky for you that the first thing you get to review is 5 star quality in terms of the movie itself. Here's to hoping everything doesn't get perfect ratings. I am sensing a 5 star rating for Over the Top when it's released in September.

Joke.

Anywho, I read somewhere that wal-mart has this in an edition that doesn't have the exclusive bonus stuff and as a result is cheaper. Any truth to this? I think I read it somewhere on this forum, but I didn't see it on walmart.com.

[project-blu]

Originally Posted by Fisher & Sons

Welcome aboard. Nice review. Interesting and lucky for you that the first thing you get to review is 5 star quality in terms of the movie itself. Here's to hoping everything doesn't get perfect ratings. I am sensing a 5 star rating for Over the Top when it's released in September.

Joke.

Anywho, I read somewhere that wal-mart has this in an edition that doesn't have the exclusive bonus stuff and as a result is cheaper. Any truth to this? I think I read it somewhere on this forum, but I didn't see it on walmart.com.

over the top gets a 6 in september. get it right

[Sarang]

Not to sound like a dick but as someone who knows how legendary the original "Woodstock" is I'm wondering why the concert performances aren't just shy, minutewise, of how long the festival is.
I mean there still have to be a LOT of Woodstock bands not included if you take into account the length of the film and include the extra's as well. All of this being said I consider it very regrettable. Or even all of that film being scrapped. I hope one day we'll see like a 10 disc BR set or something.

[Arkadin]

great review!
btw: for those people interested--when the footage starts of the Dead performing "Lovelight" you soon see some unknown person tripping on stage and ranting into the microphone for parts of the ENTIRE song.
who is this person?
he's not a band member ok.
what happened was that the Dead's performance was completely messed up by the condition at the festival--including various electric shocks during the actual performance. After a brief opening 2 songs that weren't even complete (St.Stephen>Mama Tried), there was a complete break while they tried valiantly to fix the problems plaguing the equipment.
A mic was turned on for various announcements from the stage during this time.
They started back up with "Dark Star>High Time."
After those two songs, they began to play the closing "Lovelight", with the then lead vocalist Pigpen singing.
the footage does not show the beginning of the song.
the entire performance was actually just over 45 minutes.
so the song has already been going a number of minutes when the footage that is shown on disc 2 begins.
shortly after the footage begins we see a random hippie from the crowd begin to speak into the mic that was accidently left on.
Amazingly, the Dead don't seem to care, and they never made any attempt to stop this strange tripping interloper.
so it ended up being a very unique performance of this song to say the least.
so that's the story of the final song in what is universally regarded as the WORST set the DEAD ever played.
I have listened to 100's of shows, and must agree.
I don't even think there is one other show that is close to being only 5 songs long.
unfortunate to say the least, and the reason why until now the Dead's performance has been never been officially released.

[Dr_Teeth]

I havent seen the movie on Blu but here's my review of it. 1080P 40 year old bush

[cheez avenger]

Originally Posted by Dr_Teeth

I havent seen the movie on Blu but here's my review of it. 1080P 40 year old bush

BWAHAHAHAHA!

[HDM-GHANDI]

Welcome Mr. Shannon!

First off, I loved the woodstock collection. Seems silly to some, but I had to have the ticket. Otherwise I would have been content getting the WALMART version with no extra three bonus songs or extra three documentaries. So in answer to above, yes the walmart is just the two discs with no extra docs or three performances that amazon and target seem to differ in offerings.

Second, on bd-live... the only thing I can recommend to any of the companies (to lead in bd-live) is offer more video of something. I would love to see more performances for woodstock. Even if it wasn't HD, more downloadable(I keep on memory card) video is a winner. More video for your buck. Transformers and Tropic Thunder have extra cool videos, however, would like to be able to download that stuff on my machine instead of stream and not keep on card.

This is a definite rewatchable blu-ray set. Glad it came out, I didn't see it coming.

[project-blu]

yeah, saw the WM version tonite. 29.99, standard blu case. too bad they didn't do this for Notebook or Casablanca.

[HDM-GHANDI]

I'm pretty sure I have seen Casablanca, not as the big set, at walmart. I have the hd dvd and decided not to re-buy. The trade in deal for $5 should not be the box set. There out there somewhere.

Also, thanks Arkadin for the backstory. Something else to look for. Hello, do it again.


Edit:
Richie Havens song Freedom was a great emotional start. Santana Soul Sacrifice was freakin far out man. And Joe Cockers With a little help from my Friends was phenomenal. I already own the standalone Jimmy Hendrix woodstock blu-ray so yeah, his performances were great.

[CaptainArcher]

Maybe Jeff can re-review a lot of the movies here and give accurate accounts.

[RoadLizard]

Welcome, Jeff Shannon. We are glad to have you aboard. I must respectfully disagree with your assessment of the Woodstock release though. As I stated in another thread, the performances are for the most part NOT very good. Santana rocked. Crosby, Stills, and Nash were solid. A few others werent too bad but most of it just didnt sound that good at all.

And, I grew tired of the views of people just walking around or standing around. The stage setup scenes were rather dull and the split-screen stuff was bothersome. Im a huge fan of many of those bands and I appreciate what Woodstock meant for many people. This documentary/film just left me somewhat bored and I just couldnt get that into it. I used the FF on my PS3 quite often just to get through the "blah" footage. Maybe I was looking for more of a straight concert video or whatever?

Either way, great review and I look forward to reading more from you.

[nmcmahan52]

Originally Posted by project-blu

over the top gets a 6 in september. get it right

when i turn my hat backwards, it's like a switch