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Kansas - Best of Kansas Live (VHS) [Aka: Live Confessions DVD] CD (album) cover

BEST OF KANSAS LIVE (VHS) [AKA: LIVE CONFESSIONS DVD]

Kansas

 

Symphonic Prog

3.25 | 15 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Tarcisio Moura
Prog Reviewer
3 stars If you ever wondered how was a Kansas concert with John Elefante on vocals, then this DVD is for you. For years I was looking for a good video of classic Kansas to see what they were live. I heard they had reputation of being a terrific live band. Unfortunatly, until the recently Sail On - the 30th anniversary Edition boxset, that comes with a DVD of their performances the rock Concert series, there were none ´official´ footage of the group in their best remembered line up. For almost two decades the only video you could find in the stores was this one, and it was not an easy one to get either. Recently I did borrow it from a friend, and he only had the VHS edition, and not in a very good condition. However, I heard the DVD version of this show was not a remastered one, and had no extras, so I had no reason to try to spend my hard earned money on it. The VHS would do.

Although the show itself was not exactly the one I wanted to see, it was very good, anyway. The band was right to get Elefante to replace Walsh: the guy has a powerful voice, very similar to Walsh´s. And he was very good as a frontman too, haing an athletic perfomance during the whole time. Of course the bulk of the concert is based on their then recently released Vinyl Confessions album (not one of their best as we all know very well), but they still play several classics with the usual class and precision. I really enjoyed the energetic perfomance of No One Together, for exemple. Guest musician Warren Ham is a mixed blessing: his flute and soprano sx interventions are fine, adding some new colors to their sound, but when he plays the alto saxophone the music slips too close to musak for my taste.

It´s strange to see how violinist Robby Steinhardt is doing all the talking, being the MC of the night, when he is clearly the odd man out here, both musically and visually. His role in the band was very diminished by the new, more AOR oriented stuff, and his long hair and bearded figure was not exactly fashinable (the others show a cleaner, more early 80´s suited look). He seems to be quite enthusiastic anyway but that wouldn´t last too long since he left the band soon after the tour was over. This was also a comemorative video, celbrating the band´s 10th anniversary. Since Steve Walsh was the only one missing here, the band shows they had lost none of their tremendous musicanship and tightness.

The overall quality of the sound seems to be good, with all the instruments and voices very well balanced, you can hear everything. The old VHS availabe was not in the best conditions but it easy to tell that it would benefit a lot with a good remastering for a new DVD edition.

Conclusion: Good, but not essential. While we still wait for a ´real´ classic line up DVD to appear from a vault somewhere, we have to be content with what we have. And this is by no mean a bad one. if you like the John Elefante era Kansas, you´ll probably love this video. If you don´t there´s still chance you gonna enjoy at least the classic tracks, for they were perfomed with power and respect for their glorious past. Liking it or not, Elefante was a good match for Walsh´s absence, at least when they were playing the early stuff.

Tarcisio Moura | 3/5 |

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