Allman Brothers Band/40: 40th Anniversary Show Live At The Beacon Theatre (DVD Review)

As handsomely packaged as last year’s Brothers & Sisters, ‘Deluxe Edition,’ 40 is so impeccably recorded in audio and video (the latter of which makes an often cheesy light show look impressive), it is comparable to 2003’s Live at the Beacon Theatre DVD (though lacking its assortment of bonus features). Classy as the designated event it recognizes, the DVD (no Blu-Ray) captures The Allman Brothers Band playing the group’s first two records, in their entirety in sequence, at the Beacon Theatre in New York on the 40th anniversary of the original lineup’s first time playing together. An encore of “Statesboro Blues,” the famous opening of The Brothers’ breakthrough album At Fillmore East, reaffirms the logic of this setlist as much as the evolution of the iconic ensemble.

It’s necessary to turn the volume up from its oddly designated low setting (there are questions about the audio options all working), but the rough and tumble sound of the septet calls for cranking it anyway, hearkening as it does to the rowdy but practiced approach of the lineup that included founder guitarist Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley. His long hair loose giving him a ghostly air, Gregg Allman belts out staples of the ABB repertoire such as Muddy Waters’ “Trouble No More” with as much vigor as he’s shown in recent years, such set pieces as that alternating with extended improvisations that feature the guitar partnership of Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks that’s reinvigorated both The Allman Brothers and its fan base over the last decade.

The growth of the group’s audience over that period is in proportion to the means by which ABB’s nurtured their performances during that same interval. Prodded by his fretboards partner, Trucks has often gone deeper on the band’s segue from “Blackhearted Woman” into the Grateful Dead’s “The Other One,” with the three-man rhythm section (Jaimoe and Butch Trucks on drums with Marc Quinones on percussion) pumping furious under him, but his solo is as streamlined as it is vicious. A furious call and response on “Every Hungry Woman” is indicative of the telepathy he and Haynes have developed over the years: it not only enlivens this number from the eponymous ABB debut, but precludes any rote feel from this presentation.

The formality of the occasion and its concept prevents sublime moments ABB have invented since Haynes returned to the fold in 2001, such as transitions from “Dreams” to “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” but the patient yet adventurous invention imparted to both these warhorses simultaneously preserves the Allman Brothers legacy. No doubt the group’s comfort level at the Beacon venue, combined with the historic nature of the date, moves them to impart such emotion to “Revival” (where Trucks takes a slide solo astounding in its intricacy) and numbers from Idlewild South less frequently played in recent history, like “Leave My Blues at Home,” and the heartrending ballad “Please Call Home.”

John Lynskey’s essay on the inside cover of the subtly striking triple-fold digi-pak is too polite in its own way to accurately capture, much less reflect, the passion in this performance that at its moments of peak impact, such as this searing interpretation of “Whipping Post,” is as visceral as it is cerebral. But that’s really the only aspect of 40 that doesn’t live up to its historic significance (thought running the credits over the final number undermines the drama of the moment).

Including stellar appearances by Boz Scaggs and Eric Clapton, 40’s skillful camera angles, including as many panoramic shots as face to face close-ups of the players, present a scintillating vision of a band that, over the decades has lost, recovered and maintained its unity in such a way it’s turned the passage of time into a means of transcendendence.