Wasabi Tuna (2003)

This one is for the faithful
It may not be the best introduction to the titanic musical anomaly that is Hot Tuna, but the spirit and energy are strong and the band achieves moments of transcendent beauty. Hot Tuna's performances in the 70's, when electric "country blues" music was relatively new on the scene, were amazing for their freshness. This performance 25-plus years later is amazing for the principals' musical virtuosity, unique feel for the repertoire and, foremost, their pure ability to jam. The recording of "Do Not Go Gentle" which I first encountered on Kaukonen's understated 1995 "Land of Heroes" album is felt very strongly by the musicians and comes off as very moving. Casady is in fine form and the rest of the band works hard; the drummer ain't no Sammy Piazza but there is a decent balance. The sound quality ranks among the best live recordings on video.

Not the best version of this fine band
This is yet another music DVD that has been made because it represents the best video and audio quality recording of the band, rather than their best performance.

In this case, I was not bothered by the documentary elements mentioned by the other reviewer - probably because I had never before read or heard much information about Hot Tuna. Admittedly, such interview material wears thin after a few playings, while the music hopefully does not. Somehow, I've yet to see anyone acknowledge this by separating out the musical performances and the documentary into different parts of the DVD.

In any event, the most disappointing part of this DVD was the performances. The simple fact is that the drummer used in this gig is a level below the drummers used on the earlier albums of the 70's and 80's where these songs debuted. This is why the editorial review found the material to be less "electric" sounding than might have been expected. They really can't get into the sort of heavy blues rock jams that would be facilitated by a top drummer.

As such, this package may be appreciated by fans, but is not the right introduction to the band, despite the visual element.

Hot Tuna Celestial Live Electric 1994
Hot Tuna remains one of America's Underground Music Buried Treasures which is very unfortunate since the DVD of their electric 1994 performance does nothing to help show what a unique band this really is. Anyone who has followed the careers of these music icons from the demise of the Jefferson Airplane through the current Further Festival Grateful Dead revival relationships will tell you stories of late night jams taking them all the way to the morning sun-rise. They are as American as apple pie yet the producers of this video felt compelled to not let this concert performance stand on its own merit. Instead each song is annoyingly cut into interviews of band members ruining the overall effect of this video. From a technical standpoint, the music is true. It has some analog PA Board hiss instead of being a slick digital studio production. However, this is they way they really sound live. The video looks like it was remastered from video tape, not film. Probably the high-light of this DVD is the bonus audio tracks which are only available on this DVD and not on CD. That is the only reason I gave this DVD a three star rating instead of a two star rating. In summary, this Video suffers from the same production flaws and format as their 1992 Acoustic Sweet Water release. In other words, if you have been waiting for a good 'unedited' concert release of Hot Tuna then you'll probably still have a long while to wait.