Bad Company: Hard Rock Live Blu-ray features mediocre video and great audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
The classic rock event of the year! Live reunion concert from Bad Company, featuring Paul Rodgers, Mick Ralphs
& Simon Kirke performing a one night only sold-out show at The Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida on August
8, 2008.
Most bands, even very good bands, have a shelf life of ten to fifteen years, tops. There are the
defiantly successful exceptions, like U2 or The Rolling Stones—and I'm hedging on Radiohead being
around for awhile longer—but the vast majority ride the wave of momentum as far as it will take
them and then drift off into an obscurity peppered with intermittent VH1 appearances. And this
makes sense. Rock is a game for the young. There's another category though: the bands that just
plain refuse to die, who stubbornly soldier on despite shuffling line-ups and waning cultural
relevancy. I'm thinking of, say, Three Dog Night doggedly playing three nights at your local casino,
or worse, over-the-hill metal heads Great White, who, if you remember correctly, tried to put on a
pyrotechnic display inside a small club and ended up burning the place to the ground with a
hundred-some audience members trapped inside. If you need a tragedy to illustrate how it's
impossible to recapture the lost glory of youth, that's the one. So, there's something both sad and
oddly inspirational about has-been, leather-clad rockers who keep on trucking into middle-age and
beyond, playing their one-time hits to a dwindling fan base on the state fair circuit. Sad for all the
obvious reasons, and inspirational because they just don't seem to give a damn. That, or they really
need the touring revenue.
The three remaining original members of Bad Company...
So it is that 1970s supergroup Bad Company, the British hard rock outfit that gave us the cringe-
worthy "Feel Like Makin' Love," reunited in 2009 with frontman Paul Rodgers—who had been
busy touring with Queen as a stand-in for Freddy Mercury—and kicked off a ten-date tour with a
mostly sold-out show at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida. Here, Rodgers is joined by original
guitarist Mick Ralphs and drummer Simon Kirke, with extra help from two hired guns, Howard
Leese on six-string and Lynn Sorensen plucking away at the bass. I'll be perfectly frank; Bad
Company's brand of bluesy riff-rock and lofted-lighter balladry does absolutely nothing for me.
That said, I'm not about to critically eviscerate them just because I happen to think their songs
haven't exactly aged well. I can understand their allure. They make meat and potatoes rock 'n'
roll, barroom jukebox music that will never be praised for its originality or ironically venerated by
pop-culture-recycling hipsters, but undeniably carries a kind of bad-ass blue-collar
swagger.
And if this comeback concert proves anything, it's that the boys of Bad Company have still got it.
Sure, their stage show has calmed down—these guys aren't nearly as nimble as they were in
1973—and yes, the songs have lost the edge they might have had when hard rock was in its
formative years, but the musical chops are still there. Simon Kirk lays down 4/4 grooves with
locked-in precision, Mick Ralphs riffs up a crunchy sonic storm and lets loose with squealing, fret-
scrambling guitar solos, and Paul Rodgers shows just why he was cherry-picked by Queen to step
in for the dearly departed Mr. Mercury. His type of singing is like nails on the chalkboard of my
mind—if his voice were a t-shirt, it would be adorned with a cheesy airbrushed wolf howling at
the moon, if that makes any sense—but I've got to admit that the man can certainly croon. The
band works their way through their back catalog, cranking out one single after another, but
there's not much variety in Bad Company's sound. The riffing is near endless, only interrupted by
a few obligatory power ballads, like "Shooting Star"—a tribute to Joplin, Hendrix, and all the other
fallen rock gods of yore—and "Ready For Love," whose chorus might as well be featured in a
Viagra commercial. And, of course, it wouldn't be a Bad Company show without "Feel Like Makin'
Love," which is perhaps one of the most unsubtle rock songs ever penned. Lyricism is most
definitely not the band's strong suite.
The guys seem to be having a lot of fun on stage—Paul Rodgers especially, as he twirls his mic
stand with abandon—and the audience eats it right up. Don't take this the wrong way, but the
crowd reminds me of "White People Dancing," a Dave Chappelle sketch where the comedian, with
the help of John Mayer, sets out to prove that white people can dance—but only when
listening to electric guitar. As the camera pans the crowd, you'll see a preponderancy of middle-
aged women—in too-tight camisoles—lips pursed and eyes closed, doing a kind of gypsy shuffle
with swaying arms and bobbing chins. Likewise, the male constituency—in polo shirts and
Hawaiian shorts, cradling beers against their ample midsections—do a mild imitation of
headbanging and pump their fists triumphantly into the air. Ah, the transporting power of rock.
For one night, it's 1976 again, Bad Company is rocking hard on stage, and everyone feels like
makin' love.
Track List:
1. Bad Company
2. Honey Child
3. Sweet Lil' Sister
4. Burnin' Sky
5. Gone, Gone, Gone
6. Run With The Pack
7. Live For The Music
8. Seagull
9. Feel Like Makin' Love
10. Movin' On
11. Simple Man
12. Rock Steady
13. Shooting Star
14. Can't Get Enough
15. Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy
16. Ready For Love
17. Good Lovin' Gone Bad
Bad Company: Hard Rock Live was shot natively on high definition video, and while the
image doesn't look bad, per se, the disc's 1080i/AVC-encoded transfer is certainly not the
prettiest concert experience available on Blu-ray. Most noticeable is the rampant noisiness of the
image. Digital artifacts buzz heavily over everything and occasional macroblocking can be noticed
in the fog and black backgrounds. You'll even see some slight banding in the color gradients of the
big washes of stage lighting. The fog really doesn't help, as it gives the image a hazy, indistinct
quality and robs the picture of contrast. Clarity varies throughout; there are some finely detailed
close-ups as well as more than a few soft and muddy shots. When the image is crisp, it
sometimes looks overly edgy, with fringing evident on hard lines, like the outline of Paul Rodgers'
microphone. Colors also vacillate, with bold splashes of lighting but pallid skin tones. Black levels
often hover in a grayish gloaming, and whites are frequently overheated, blowing out detail.
(Someone should have told the band members not to wear white shirts.) Overall, I can't say I'm
too enamored with the picture quality here, but then again, picture quality isn't exactly my first
priority when watching a concert Blu-ray.
Do note that since it was nearly impossible to capture clean screenshots in 1080i, all of the
screenshots in this review have been captured in 720p and do not represent the disc's full image
quality.
Thankfully, the concert's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track at least halfway redeems the
disc's A/V presentation. As you might expect, this is a soundboard-centric mix that sounds very
"live" and includes a generous but never overwhelming amount of audience participation—
cheers, whoops, and sing-a-longs—in the rear channels. If I have one complaint about the track
it's that the bass and drums seem a little low in the mix, which puts more emphasis on the
crunchy guitars and Rodgers' husky vocal delivery. Though the low-end isn't as potent as it
could/should be, the track still carries plenty of weight, and the mid-to-high range is more than
adequately detailed. From syrupy, flanger and chorus peddle-heavy solos to overdriven riffs, the
guitar work sounds fantastic. And while the volume on the drums does seem marginalized, snare
hits are solid and cymbal splashes ring out nicely. The vocals are perfectly prioritized out front,
and every nuance of Rodgers' voice—down to the quietest woah woah woah—is easily heard. Bad
Company fans should be pleased.
The disc also includes a Linear PCM 2.0 stereo track, but I'm not as fond of it. Obviously, it sounds
"flatter," and it just doesn't feel like there's enough room for the instruments in the front
channels. It's bright and clear, though, so if you don't have a surround sound set-up, this track
certainly won't do you wrong.
On the main disc we get naught but a Trailer (SD, 2:18), but this release also includes a 16-track
bonus CD so you can take the live show with you wherever you go.
It's easy to mock aging rock stars—the baggy leather pants, the chunky gold rings, the bad hair
cuts, the leopard-print silk shirts—but I've got to give Bad Company credit for rocking out and
putting on a good show, even after all these years. If you're an LP-toting, Bad Company baseball
cap-wearing kind of fan—you can see one in the front row of the crowd here—you'll definitely want
to pick up this Blu-ray release, which also includes a 16-track live CD. More casual "employees" of
Bad Company, however, may want to try a rental first to see if it's something they need to have in
their collections.
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