Review of Ringo Starr And His All-Starr Band: Tour 2003

Introduction

Ringo Starr has come in for quite a bit of stick over the years, with many a comedian or writer using him to get some quick laughs:-

"Well, for instance, in this universe, it could be that Hitler won the Second World War. It could be something even more incredible, like perhaps Ringo was a really good drummer." Holly, Red Dwarf Season 2, Episode 6: Parallel Universe

"Man, the Beatles were so high, they let Ringo sing a couple of tunes. Tell me they weren`t partying." Bill Hicks, Relentless

He has also appeared on "The Simpsons" but he was treated with some reverence, and also delived the immortal line "Gear!" when seeing Marge`s painting of him from the 1960s.

But he has really had the last laugh, as for the last 15 years he`s been touring with his "All Starr Band". The line up changes all the time, but famous alumni have included Dr John, Nils Lofgren, Billy Preston, Joe Walsh, John Entwistle, Gray Brooker, Jack Bruce, Peter Frampton.

The current All Starrs are John Waite (best known for drive time classic "Missing You"), Colin Hay (from Men At Work), Paul Carrack (Mike + The Mechanics, Squeeze) and Sheila E (drummer for various artists including Gloria Estefan, Herbie Hancock and Stevie Nicks). The tracks featured here are up above.

Video

A non-anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer, which while there`s little wrong with it begs the question "why bother with widescreen if you`re not going anamorphic"? Since this is a mixture of backstage and concert footage (more on that later), you should either settle with full frame or go the whole hog and give us anamorphic widescreen for everything.

It`s all perfectly watchable and there`s not much wrong with it, it`s just a shame that they stopped at the halfway house of non-anamorphic widescreen.

Audio

A choice of DD2.0 stereo or DD5.1 soundtracks. They are both pretty good tracks, but when you move up to the DD5.1 track there`s just that nice little edge to the sound, with some good instrument placement, good separation, nice bass and audience sound. Very nice to listen to.

Features

A slightly tricky choice here. There is a reasonable back stage interview/documentary type thing going on, but it`s actually mixed in with the main feature. This is really annoying when you just want to listen to the music. It`s quite interesting, and certainly captures Ringo`s unique sense of humour, but it should only be available on its own and not mixed into the main feature at all.

There are also a few bonus songs not in the main feature. Again, these could have been tagged onto the main feature, but they are good to have anyway. However, once again I`m forced to mention....

From Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:-

acoustic - adjective - of, relating to, or being a musical instrument whose sound is not electronically modified

One of the extra songs claims to be an acoustic version, and it isn`t! When will these people start checking the dictionary before making these claims?

Conclusion

An enjoyable performance from good band. The good thing about the All Starr tours is that the band members get to play some of their own songs, so you get a real mix of styles and influences. My favourite tracks here were It Don`t Come Easy, How Long (from Paul Carrack), Down Under (from Colin Hay, and it sounds great today), Missing You (yes, Jonh Waite is still flogging it) and of course With A Little Help From My Friends.

A definite buy for Ringo fans, and highly recommended for more casual fans, fans of some of the artists featured and those of you with only a passing interest in Ringo`s later work. I`ll be playing this one again!