Customer Reviews

Chad Smith - Eastern Rim

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I'm one of those consumers who likes to be one of the first to purchase each new drumming video/DVD as they are released, always seeking a new technique or groove that I can employ in my playing. I admire Chad Smith's energetic drumming and would say he's one of the best "funk" drummers in music today. I also saw Chad perform with Ian Paice of Deep Purple at the 2005 Modern Drummer Festival and enjoyed meeting him and seeing him play. So, it was with considerable anticipation that I ordered this 2-disc DVD.

Well, there is some great playing here, but overall I was very disappointed. This DVD was filmed (yes, film, not video) in Australia at a DrumTech festival and at a Japanese festival clearly sponsored by Pearl. The Australian performance was the better of the two discs because there wasn't a language problem that interfered with being able to ask him questions or to hinder communication with the audience. In the second disc, which features the Japanese festival, language is a huge problem.

In both discs, Chad seems compelled to curse and use fowl language and there were impressionable kids in both audiences. I found it offensive and, while it may reveal Chad's "happy-go-lucky" personality, it says little about his judgement or his communication ability. To make things worse, there is a lot of communication between Chad and a Japanese woman on the Japanese disc that is full of double entendre and sexual innuendo on top of the bad language.

I'm really disappointed in this video. It's almost like something that was done to fulfill a contract obligation with little regard for the audience or the educational value of the material. I was inspired by Chad's playing, but disappointed with the banter, which offered little to making me a better drummer or giving me a better understanding of Chad's technique.

Poor sound at times, to little drumming. Chad is a nice chap though and very god at it.