Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985

Starring:Stevie Ray Vaughan, Double Trouble
Studio: Sony
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
If you have even a passing interest in Stevie Ray Vaughan's peerless mastery of urban blues guitar, you must own Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985. Spaced almost exactly three years apart, these concerts (60 and 93 minutes, respectively) represent the Texan blues god at his fiery best, with Double Trouble (drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon) laying the solid foundation upon which SRV built a Fender-driven sound as fierce as it was perfectly refined. The '82 show was truly "success in disguise," because despite booing from a festival audience lulled by a day of acoustic blues, and the stunned dejection that SRV felt after persevering through a uncompromising set, this was the turning point in SRV's career, leading to post-show encounters with Jackson Browne and David Bowie, who proved instrumental in bringing Stevie's music to an appreciative global audience.

Amazon.com

If you have even a passing interest in Stevie Ray Vaughan's peerless mastery of urban blues guitar, you must own Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985. Spaced almost exactly three years apart, these concerts (60 and 93 minutes, respectively) represent the Texan blues god at his fiery best, with Double Trouble (drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon) laying the solid foundation upon which SRV built a Fender-driven sound as fierce as it was perfectly refined. The '82 show was truly "success in disguise," because despite booing from a festival audience lulled by a day of acoustic blues, and the stunned dejection that SRV felt after persevering through a uncompromising set, this was the turning point in SRV's career, leading to post-show encounters with Jackson Browne and David Bowie, who proved instrumental in bringing Stevie's music to an appreciative global audience.

Customer Reviews:

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985.......2007-05-23

A snapshot into history. His first appearance at Montreux booed and unappreciated. A few short years later at his second appearance, cheered as an icon of Texas blues. In between not only did he become famous but he cleaned up his life and it shows in his personality onstage. Throughout, his music is unmatchable.

The Kind!.......2007-04-04

Great dvd. A must buy for any Stevie fan!I was lucky enough to see him live twice.These two performances brought back great memories.

Superb!.......2007-04-02

I have played these over and over for years. I guess I'll never get tired of them. A few glitches in the 1985 production, but other than that as representative of SRV as we are probably ever going to get. Any fan of SRV or this sort of music has to have these, they are historic. One comment on the booing in 1982. It really reveals what jerks we can all be. If you don't like a performance, like it's too loud for you widdle ears; leave. To sit there and boo a performance like that (or any performance) only tells the world what an ignoramus you are. If the jerks had left that performance, SRV probably would have played on for at least another hour. 40 minutes is pretty short for him. So in the end what they did is rob the rest of us of another hour of that 1982 performance for all time. Thanks! There is a DVD of Buddy Guy at the same festival a couple of decades later (in the Buddy Guy 70 boxed set) where some dufus shouts out "play some real blues" at the end of the performance. Amazing! At least in the Buddy Guy case the crowd got on the heckler.

A Double-Dose of Historic Documentation .......2007-03-19

Stevie Ray Vaughan was a six-string force of nature with his Fender Stratocaster. He was playing small clubs in Texas with drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon in 1982 when someone with connections heard them and declared "you need to play Montreux". Sooo... without a record, a recording contract or any name recognition outside of the handful of people who had heard them playing in Texas, they headed over to Europe where they were booked at the famous Montreux Jazz festival on the same day as several acoustic stars. Stevie and Double Trouble hit the stage with their electrified cyclone and played to a rousing chorus of boos. Stevie, talented as he was, dressed like a cross between a Texas Gunslinger and a New Orleans Pimp, and the crowd reaction ranged between indifference and total hostility. Were they good? Take a listen... the accompanying and extremely informative documentary features interviews with Slater and Layton, along with Jackson Browne, John Mayer, and a few others who knew what happened that day. SRV and DT burned that stage to the ground. They had honed their 3-piece Texas Blues to a fine edge and they unleashed their power on that crowd. The "music fans", too stupid to notice the genius in front of their very eyes, hadn't yet been told by radio disc jockeys who they should like.... so they didn't like SRV - yet. Of course there were musicians there too, though, and the word spread like wildfire through Jackson Browne's band.... and David Bowie.... and soon all the Montreux musicians were down in the musician's lounge listening to the kind of band that makes musicians tell other musicians "come here.... you've just GOT to hear THIS!" (I had the same experience the first time my brother played their first recording - which was made as a result of this very concert.) David Bowie had to figure out a way to get this guitar genius on his CD and in his band. (Listen to Stevie's wailing guitar on "Let's Dance".) Jackson Browne offered the contractless trio the opportunity to record in his studio. They made their way out to California and basically just recorded their live set in the studio. THAT recording became "Texas Flood" and all of a sudden SRV was not an unknown...

Two albums and a keyboardist later, Stevie returned to Montreux in 1985 as a "conquering hero" of sorts and although I would hesitate to say that they sounded better in the '85 concert, it is certainly gratifying to see them received with open-armed enthusiasm. In the '82 concert they only played about 52 minutes. In '85 they turn it on for a hot hour and a half.

Both of those concerts are more than worth a listen - and this fantastic double-disc set includes both concerts, plus the documentary. This is 5-star all the way.

Stevie Ray is sorely needed in today's cookie-cutter music scene.......2007-03-14

Is it just a coincidence that when Stevie Ray Vaughan died in 1990, American music as a whole suddenly seemed to die with him?? Few performers in the last 15 years have possessed the overwhelming firepower and talent that this man had. The 1990's sadly became the decade when real talent and originality became a thing of the past as manufactured pop, rock, and country clones took over the national music scene like a bad disease.

In the first concert presented in this set, we witness a crowd of closed-minded morons mercilessly booing a guy with far more talent than anybody on the charts today could ever hope to have. It was nice to see that at least some in the audience were cheering and applauding in appreciation of SRV's performance, and you gotta love how Stevie Ray and the band totally ignored the boos throughout the entire show and just kept on rockin! It is sad to think that if Vaughan were the opening act for one of today's hot new stars, he would likely receive the same reaction that he got from the Montreux crowd that night in 1982. Would today's pop/metal/rap fans appreciate a guy who only needs "talent" to captivate an audience instead of smoke, lights, mirrors, or half naked girls???

The two concerts on this DVD are significant in SRV's career and are presented with good sound and picture quality, although the far away camera shot during the encore of the 1985 show is disappointing. Both shows consist of solid performances, but neither show truly captures Stevie Ray at his absolute best. The 1982 appearance is probably the best of the two, although Stevie's dynamic stage presence that is evident in other live footage seems a little withheld here. The 1985 show features the expanded Double Trouble line-up with Reese Wynans on keyboards, but Stevie was visibly near the peak of his drug abuse when this concert was filmed, and his performance seems to lack some of the fire and passion that is clearly seen in the 1983 El Mocambo show and the two Austin City Limits appearances.

The segment with blues legend Johnny Copeland is the definite highlight of the 85 concert! Copeland makes the most of his three-song set, holding his own with Stevie Ray in both the guitar and vocal departments. Stevie and Johnny's duet on the down and dirty blues masterpiece "Tin Pan Alley" is probably the best performance on the entire DVD. Copeland's soulful, tortured vocals in the second verse of this song is a lesson in the art of blues singing at its finest! With so many flashy blues-rock guitarists throughout the years, it seems that great blues singing has become a lost art these days. Only the very best blues singers are able to deliver the kind of vocal performance that Johnny Copeland does here. He also cuts loose on some hot solos with Stevie Ray during a rockin' version of "Look at little sister".

Live footage of the great Stevie Ray Vaughan is still pretty rare which makes these two concerts a must-have for any blues fan, even if the El Mocambo show and the Austin City Limits appearances are a little better. We can only hope there are at least one or two more live shows from SRV's short career that will make it to DVD someday.

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