A Night's Tale: Live in the USA [DVD] - Caravan

Caravan's DVD A Night's Tale: Live in the USA makes a fine companion piece to A Knight in London, picking up their story a decade later and across an ocean without skipping a beat. Recorded at Nearfest, Patriot's Theater, in Trenton, NJ, on June 29th, 2002, it captures the band in startlingly good form, 35 years into their history and still capable of delivering a spirited show packed with attractive singing (Pye Hastings' and Jim Leverton's voices have only grown richer with age, and Hastings can still hit the high notes), virtuoso playing, and well-chosen music from across their history. Indeed, all but three of the songs overlap those done at the London show, but they're done so well and so differently here that there should be no concern about overlap. The shooting and recording are state-of-the-art, and several of the numbers feature some brief camera trickery in which the image goes to black-and-white and captures rehearsal and set-up material that is related to what you're seeing. The lineup is also the same, except that original keyboard player Dave Sinclair has returned here, replacing Jan Schelhaas, his successor, who had been in the band for the London show. There are some repetitive bonuses from the earlier performance, but the best part of the supplement is Geoffrey Richardson's specific recollections about Nearfest. The disc opens automatically to a simple two-layer menu that's easy to manipulate -- the sound is excellent whether played back in stereo or 5.1 Surround. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide