Customer Reviews

Kenny Loggins: Alive!

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For those of us who have traced Kenny's career over the years, this DVD will take you back to the carefree days of rock and roll. The energy of this live performance is incredible and the songs are very well done. The sound quality is not as good as some of the digitally recorded DVD's that are currently available, but it's not far off. The music is the same as from the live CD of the same title. Shot outdoors (what is it with this guy and playing outside?), it spans a day and night and provides a great couple of hours of live music watching.

Kenny Loggins Alive is a great DVD. I had seen this band six times over 1978 to 1980, (three times from the front row) and this DVD brings me back to those days. This performance is before Kenny's songs became mega pop hits. The band he assembled were all great musicians, and complimented each other nicely. There is an intensity that a performer has on his way up, that is often lost when he gets to the top. Sadly, I saw Kenny only once more, in 1982. This was after High Adventure was released. His style had completely changed. Horns were replaced with synthesizers, and the show stopped being from a great band perspective, and now was more of a "Kenny is cool, dig him!" A special highlight on this DVD is Kenny's informal playing of All Alone Tonite (before the actual concert starts.) Also, the band played much more rock and roll than they did two years later. Another highlight is footage of the crowd, which often is scantily dressed. These shots really bring me back twenty years. This DVD is a must for those of us who loved the Kenny Loggins band before Kenny's emphasis changed.

This is just a great concert. I had it recorded on cassette, (from King Biscuit, I think), and it was stolen along with my Mazda in 1988. I missed the tape almost as much as the car, and I was thrilled to see this issued on DVD after all these years. Great song selection, great band...it was before Kenny discovered mousse, before he began trashing his ex-wife and changing the lyrics to Danny's Song, (a really bad move, Ken), before he started writing books about love with his new wife. This was from when Kenny was cool. For those of you who may care, Tris Imboden was last seen drumming for Chicago, and George Hawkins plays bass for the great Delbert McClinton. Does anyone know what ever happened to Mike Hamilton? His solo at the end of "Keep The Fire" by itself is worth buying this for.

One of Kenny Loggins early concerts. It doesn't follow the Alive CD due to length. The musicians are great. The unknowns would be Jon Clarke the now deceased sax and woodwind player who played with Loggins and Messina
(and later the Academy Awards) The other sax player is Vince Denham now with Michael McDonald's band. It's a shame they never taped his later concert tours (eg. his HBO 1982 one for HIGH ADVENTURE) or even his Broadway concert in 1988!

Mike Hamilton has continued his genius, playing his music on his terms for years at the Cedar Creek restaurant in Laguna Beach, California. He does a stunning rendition of Hendrick's 'Red House' on request. Guitar junkies file in and sit amongst romantic couples to listen and learn.

I believe this is the first DVD I watched when DVDs were originally the size of LPs back in the very early 1980s... (Well it might actually have been the movie "Animal House"); nevertheless, I was hooked on Kenny Loggins and have been ever since.

I've been blessed to be able to attend six concerts since 1981, up to last week at the Grove in Anaheim.

Yes, you can see a glimmer of energetic young man he was when he taped this amazing DVD all those years ago. His voice is the same.

Still, I fondly remember Kenny's November 2002 concert, in a small converted theater in Easton, PA, as my favorite concert of all time...

His son, Cody, opened for Dad... On stage, there was a drum kit made only of trashcans, a living room couch, and a mechanical Gopher... He was dancing to "I'm Alright" right along with the audience. It was very intimate, like we (all 200+ folks in the group) were spending a musical night with Kenny and his family, along with our own families...

That night I had a broken ankle and my right leg was still in the cast and I had to navigate--alone--up the curb & icy sidewalk while my husband parked the car two or three blocks away; we had a surprise snowstorm on the two-hour drive home to Greentown, PA, in the Poconos; and then found our German Shepherd, Kenya, curled up by the front door; she had climbed the six-foot backyard fence and waited for us to get home to let her inside at 2AM...

Well, we've come quite a distance from those memories. Lots of ups and downs, mostly downs, and I think, Kenny's a bit tired these days, too. But I love those treasured memories, all of them, just the same.

If you can find this DVD, the one that started it all (at least for me), buy it it's worth it. It is quintessential, classic KL!