I finished watching Albert Collins and the Icebreakers: In Concert: Ohne Filter (1985) on DVD. It was the first of two 60-minute concerts Collins did for the German TV series Ohne Filter. It was good musically, but it wasn’t well shot, especially for anyone interested in Collins’ guitar playing. The use of red lighting wasn’t well suited to the TV cameras and the shot selection was often not what I would have liked. They often focused on someone other than the player who was soloing and didn’t show enough of Collins when he was playing or showed him from an angle that obscured his hands on the guitar. The 2003 Ohne Filter concert has similar problems, but was more successful.
Among the songs Collins played were “Listen Here,” “If Trouble Was Money,” “Skatin’,” “The Highway Is Like a Woman,” and “That Thing I Used to Do.” Southside Johnny joins the band on some numbers. I admire Albert Collins enormously and am a huge fan of his tone, so I’m glad I saw the DVD, but I don’t need to own it.
Tags: Albert Collins, Blues, DVD, electric guitar, fingerstyle blues, Texas blues, The Icebreakers