Customer Reviews

Sail On: The 30th Anniversary Collection 1974-2004

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

To commemorate 30 years since the release of their first album, Kansas has released a definitive new boxed set entitled "Sail On", the first Kansas collection to feature material from nearly every album the band has released spanning their entire career.
While the two audio CDs do not include any rare or unreleased material, they do offer an excellent sampling of the band's classic heyday while giving brief glimpses into what the band has been up to in recent years.
The booklet includes a detailed essay on the history of Kansas along with some classic and rare photos chronicling their history from 1974 to now.
The main highlight of "Sail On" (and the real reason to buy this set) is the DVD which features over 95 minutes of rare vintage performances, music videos, promo films, current live footage and exclusive interviews with the Kansas band members both past and present. Much of this material had been sitting in the vaults for years and is an absolute revelation to be seen once again. The two early performances from the Don Kirshner "Rock Concert" TV show are definitive highlights capturing the band full of youthful excitement and vigor. The music videos for "Point Of Know Return", "Dust in the Wind" as well as the four-song promo film for the "Monolith" album are typical of the late 70s - somewhat cheesy but definitely fun to watch. "Fight Fire With Fire" and "All I Wanted" are also typical of their period - 80s MTV-era concept videos. The DVD closes with three performances from the band's recent "Device Voice Drum" concert DVD which capture the current Kansas in spectacular form.
If your a die-hard Kansas fan, this collection is definitely a must. Although the CDs offer nothing new, it's great to have these tracks together in one place. The DVD is worth the price alone and the overall packaging is awesome.
Join in on the 30th anniversary celebration with "Sail On", a great retrospective of one of America's greatest bands, Kansas.

Well, once again we are treated to another Kansas "greatest hits/songs" package. However, this one is different in one aspect. It has two CD's & one DVD.

The two CD's basically includes songs from almost every Kansas album, from the self-titled debut "Kansas" to the 2002 release of "Somewhere to Elsewhere". As always, you get a good flavor of how their music evolved through the years. And, as always, you are disappointed with songs that were left out. CD #1 covers the first 4 albums. Noteable missing songs are "Down the Road" from Song for America & "Mysteries & Mayhem" from Masque. But it was good to see "Lamplight Symphony" & "Miracles out of Nowhere" included. Both of which are two of my favorites.

CD #2 starts off with selections from "Point of Know Return". Of course you get the staples (Dust in the Wind, Portrait, and the title track) but you also get two surprises. "Lightning's Hand" & "Sparks of the Tempest" are both great rockers and seems to always be ignored. What is nice about this CD is it continues past Audio-Visions. "Play the Game Tonight" & "Fight Fire with Fire" From the John Elefonte period and "All I Wanted" & "Rainmaker" from the Steve Morse Era shows that Kansas adapted with some success. But why they included Eleanor Rigby here is beyond me. A great song but says nothing really new musically. If you're going to cover a Beatles number at least make it your own. This song was disappointing. The CD ends with "Icarus II" off of Somewhere to Elsewhere.

Now the DVD is really something else. 16 songs with a mix of live & video recordings. This made purchasing the set well worth it. You also get members of Kansas talking between the songs about their experiences. It's interesting to see them in their first TV gigs on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. They look so young! Fast forward to the last three numbers on the DVD and see them in their "older" appearance. No matter what, the music is never compromised. There is such a high quality to the Music of Kansas.

I would recommend this to ANY Kansas fan, even if you have all the other greatest hits sets. As I said, the DVD is well worth the duplication in music.

Kansas shows the music world how to put out a box set. It's got something from every album and a lot from their platinum selling releases. Then there's a high quality DVD. 35 minutes of live material from the early days plus fascinating videos. 3 excellent performances from their 2002 live DVD are lacking only in the absence of Kerry Livgren. They still need someone to fill his shoes. There's also a hidden performance from Device Voice Drum not included on that DVD. Go to the bottom of the menu, click right and then left to see a performance of Distant Vision from the Somewhere to Elsewhere album.

It was just 3 or 4 years ago that I was worried that my favorite band of all time did not have anything on the DVD market. Then came Device Voice Drum. Now, with the release of Sail On, we have the videos and early TV performances of our favorite band. Oh yeah, we also have two fantastic CD's that come as close as any to date in capturing the complete Kansas experience in one set.


Sound Quality

Songs on the CD's sound better than they ever have. On the DVD, the sound mix is fantastic. A 5.1 Dolby mix is available and it makes even the oldest TV performances/videos jump out at you.

Packaging

A great job packaging the set. The two CD's on the left inside jacket, with rare photos and liner notes in the middle followed by the DVD in the right inside jacket. The packaging is first class. The disks look great. The liner notes are short, but informative. The treasure is of course the rare photos.

CD Track List

For the most part, this is a flawless track list. I have issue with them including "Whats On My Mind" from Leftoverture yet not including "The Wall". Indeed, the question being what WAS on their mind when they did that? The other omission is "Glimpse of Home" from Monolith. Those two songs aside, a great track list.

DVD Track List

This would have been a perfect DVD but for the omission of the video for "Play The Game Tonight". I can only imagine some legal reasons kept it from the package. However, to have all the other vintage videos and footage, one can forgive the fact. I did think it was a nice touch adding "Distant Vision" as it was only available on the enhanced CD prior. You can watch it either by hitting the enter button once the screen goes black after the credits, or, from the main DVD menu, arrow down to the "Sound Rigging" and hit your right arrow then left arrow and this will unlock the easter egg.

One last thing to be aware of in regard to the DVD. To see/hear the band interviews, select the first item "Set Sail". The interview segments start after the first performance piece "Can I Tell You". From then on, there are bits of interviews with various members of the band in between each performance/video. If you want to watch the videos without the band input, select the third menu item "Crew Songs" and the performances/videos play one after another.

As for the interviews, some really great reflections from the band. I only wish instead of these short interview segments, the band would have recorded a commentary track for the performances/videos that would have given us even more information. But as is, these bits between the performances/videos are great to hear. Everyone from the 70's lineup is heard from and when they get to "All I wanted", Billy Greer is heard from as well.

The CD's, though cover the same music the previous hit packages have covered, they do include 5 songs from outside the Sony/Legacy label, which makes for as complete a hits package as we ever have had.

The DVD is needless to say priceless. As mentioned in a previous review, the DVD alone is worth the price of the package.

Now, what do they do for their 40th anniversary set? :)

First, the bad news: Sony wants you to buy another two-disc compilation of Kansas music. So, just in case Best Of Kansas, the first box set, and Ultimate Kansas weren't enough for you, Sail On arrives to celebrate the band's 30th Anniversary. Your reward for shelling out 35 bucks for 2 CDs of music that die-hard fans already own is an absolute must-have DVD.

The good news is that they finally did it right, covering the band's entire career instead of ending at 1983 (the band's last year as a CBS/Sony recording artist. The artwork is quite nice, depicting the ship from Point of Know Return having survived its trip over the edge of the world, and the book contains some great unpublished photos.

As I mentioned above, the reason to buy the set is the DVD which contains both of the early 70's Kirshner concerts and some fairly cheesy, but fun music videos. The interview footage from Kerry, Steve, Robby, and Dave(!)is a great companion to all the rare material.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the OLD compilations.

How many collections can this band have? I'm not sure to whom this boxset is aimed because the CDs contain nothing new and the DVD is for diehard fans only. I have to say though that it is a very fine collection: nice package and a good selection of songs that will silence critics of the earlier, Ultimate Kansas CD set(it has a couple of Morse-era tracks, as well as Icarus and Miracles). However I bought it specifically for the DVD which has music videos and rare TV performances of their early material, cleanly remastered in 5.1 surround (hah!).
First you have songs from the Rock Concert TV series featuring some performances that predate their first release (and boy, are they ever green!) and it's absolutely priceless. Two remaining tracks from those sets are not included on the DVD, unfortunately. Then some music videos from PoKR with some cheezy 70s video effects and the unavoidable fashion sense of that time, and a suite of music videos from Monolith, and a couple of 80s videos that go beyond the classic Kansas lineup. Interview clips that link the videos are not just filler; they are very enlightening and enjoyable to watch (watch the guitarist, Rich Williams, go on about him wearing stupid hats and the overalls)
All in all, the DVD itself is worth the 40 bucks. Just watch, though, when they re-release the DVD separately...

This was a gift for my husband's birthday and he was totally surprised. The music contained in this collection is awesome along with the DVD of performances. He listens to it all the time and he already knew the words to all the songs as he is an AVID Kansas fan, and this collection just topped off his collection. It is well worth the money.

I have always liked Kansas so I bought this one. However upon viewing and listening it has surpassed all my expectations

This is a fantastic collection for die-hard Kansas fans and beginner Kansas fans alike. If you're a beginner, this is all you'll ever need. It consists of 3 discs (two audio CDs and 1 DVD) and a 36-page booklet featuring rare pictures and an up-to-date biography. It contains all of their greatest hits (i.e. Carry On Wayward Son, Dust In The Wind, Point of Know Return, etc.) While this does contain songs that have been on other collections (i.e. The Best Of Kansas, Boxed Set, The Ultimate Kansas), this set features songs from every album, right up to the 2000 release of "Somewhere to Elsewhere." The other collections only have songs from 1974-1983. Unfortunately, this collection doesn't have any demo tapes or previously unreleased live material. If you are looking for that, go check out "Boxed Set". The true gem of this collection, in my opinion, would have to be the third disc (the DVD.) The DVD features rare live performances from the show "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" (which haven't been seen since the 70s), 1970s promotional videos, 1980s MTV videos, and excerpts from their 2002 live DVD "Device-Voice-Drum." After each video, there are brand new interviews with the band in which they reflect on that particular video. I recently bought this set for my dad's birthday. He's a huge Kansas fan and we're both going to see them real soon. This collection (the DVD especially) brought back a ton of memories for him. He really liked the videos from Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. In one of the videos, Rich Williams is wearing a really stupid straw hat. My dad told me that he remembers seeing the video live when it premiered in 1975, and he remembered making fun of Rich Williams' hat. As soon as the video finished, new interview footage was shown of Rich Williams regretting that he wore that stupid hat. Wow! He doesn't even remember where he got it. He thinks that he must have bought it that day, and then threw it away after the show. This is an awesome collection that I would recommend to all Kansas fans and rock fans alike.

I would have easily given this box set a "5-star" rating if it weren't for the greedy corporate music executives who continue to put out yet another "greatest hits" collection. There are MANY great Kansas songs that have been left out of this box set.
I will mention only a few great songs from Kansas that have been left out: Wheels, Loaner, Magnum Opus, Perfect Lover, The Wall, etc. Can you imagine not having Kansas's masterpiece "The Wall" not included in this box set??? I'm a pretty big Kansas fan so for me I will stick with their original studio releases.