Outside: From the Redwoods

Customer Reviews:

The most psyched concert crowd ever.......2007-04-15

Back in 1993 I was working as a technician for the Shakespeare Santa Cruz festival. The previous year, Kenny had walked around the UC Santa Cruz campus, walked through our Festival Glen, and decided then and there that he wanted to do a concert there.

They decided on a theme" leap of faith. Promotions were made, instructing fans to fax in descriptions of their own leaps of faith. The best stories were picked and those fans were selected to get tickets. When the concert came 'round and the crowd filed in, the energy was pretty incredible. Free tickets, hand-picked, all of them major fans. I wasn't a Loggings fan and still am pretty neutral about his music, but nonetheless, it was an incredible day. For fans, this is probably the best concert film out there.

Definitely worth risking.......2005-03-01

Like many others I only knew Kenny from Footloose, Danger Zone and an energetic performance on 'Live Aid'. Doing some DVD exploration I decided to risk a concert. It was one of those happy finds.
This is a really good concert and I liked the setting under the redwoods. He began strongly with 'Conviction of the Heart' which I really liked and it went from there.
He has a strong presence and a lot of heart and enthusiasm. Great upbeat rock type numbers and some gentler stuff too - often sung with guests who complemented him well.
His sharing of personal philosophy that other reviewers have referred to only happened, and then very briefly, about twice and was no distraction or discomfort for me.
Footloose is there but not Danger Zone. He had recently been compiling an album of children's songs that parents could comfortably sit through and included 'House at Pooh Corner' from it.
The audience is a family one sitting on rugs under the trees. There is a lovely cameo when a little girl in the audience is seen dancing unselfconsciously: singing all the words as if she knew them intimately.
This is a good concert if you like adult contemporary rock or country ballads (though the emphasis isnt really that way majorly), if you are a former hippie or Earth lover, or just if you have heart and enjoy solid entertainment.

Amazing Performance!.......2005-01-21

I was fortunate enough to have attended this concert back in 1993 at UC-Santa Cruz. It's funny because I didn't start out as a Kenny Loggins fan, and I am still not crazy about alot of his music, but when my girlfriend suggested we go, I decided to take a risk! Every time I hear this concert I am grateful that I made the decision to go!

I have been to many concerts, and Outside-From the Redwoods remains the best concert I have ever attended! Everything about the concert was wonderful. Kenny Loggins is undoubtedly one of the finest live performers living today! Many performers sound great when they are in the controlled environment of the studio, where mistakes and sour-notes can be fixed and as soon as you put them in front of an audience they sound awful! Not Kenny Loggins! I think he is best when heard live! He thrives off of the energy of the audience and draws inspiration from them to sing his heart out for them! His entire group of backing artists from guitar and piano players on down to an amazing harmonica player, have to be some of the most talented and capable musicians around! His Guest artists, such as Michael McDonald and Shanice bring perfect balance to his own remarkable voice.

As far as the DVD is concerned, I am amazed at the stunning quality of both the audio and the video! This could have been recorded last week, instead of twelve years ago! I remember the feeling of sitting on our blanket watching Kenny and his friends in the beautiful and majestic setting of the Redwoods at the Shakespeare Festival Glen. This DVD brought all of that back and made me feel like I was sitting right there, all over again! The video is so good that even on a normal flat screen TV, it felt like I was watching High Definition video!

Of course, the concert wasn't perfect and neither is this DVD. For one thing, even when I was at the concert I found some of Kenny's segue comments a bit strange and they made me a bit uncomfortable. I respect Kenny and his views (which I happen to largely agree with), especially when it comes to the environment, but there were moments, some of which are seen in the DVD, when Kenny would take questions from the audience. Not just questions like, "How did you get started in the business?", but "life-questions" like, "In this crazy world, how do you keep centered?" And then to see Kenny up there, sitting on the edge of the stage like Moses come down from the mountain (or dare I say it, Jesus!), pontificating and philosophizing about how we need to just follow our hearts and teach our children Hope, on so on and so forth.... Well, it just felt very strange. I had paid to see a musical performance, not "Life lessons from Kenny Loggins-Musical Guru". But, those moments were relatively few and they didn't ruin the rest of the concert for me and thankfully they only show a few of these moments on the DVD. And in Kenny's defense they were clearly very heartfelt and well meant.

The other small negative of the DVD is that although it adds 3 songs that were not included on the CD version (which I also have), the DVD eliminated 3 of the songs that were on the CD version. Those three songs were some of my favorites too, such as a second duet with Shanice called "I Would Do Anything" and a wonderful version of "Celebrate Me Home", which is one of my favorites from the concert. Also eliminated on the DVD was an awesome performance of "Angry Eyes". On the DVD, one of the replacement songs was "Return To Pooh Corner", which though nice, unless you have young children, it doesn't do much. I could have done without it, anyway!

That being said, this is still a wonderful DVD of the best concert I have ever attended and would be a treasured addition to any Kenny Loggins fans collection. I would also recommend this DVD (as well as the CD) to anyone, even if they don't think they could ever be a Kenny Loggins fan! This is not your typical Kenny Loggins music and it is performed in a way which is fresh and impressive and the scenery is gorgeous too!

By the way, if your foot isn't tapping to the beat during the energetic performances of "Footloose" and "I'm Alright", you had better check your pulse. You might be dead?!

This DVD still gets a solid and well deserved 5 out of 5 stars!

Loggins On His Land...A 100 for this one!!!!!!!!.......2004-10-16

Knowing that Loggins was born in Washington, you can imagine what is to perform on the forest!.
I think it's a dream come true for Kenny, and just watch the way he sings "Forever". Eventhough there are various Leap Of Faith songs, the environment in the video is very, very good.
Loggins let us see a part of his phylosophy during chats with the crowd.
The quality of images and sound is very clear and almost live when you view it on a 53" inches flat projector TV!!!!.
I must recommend this DVD to all of those whose love the Loggins music.
Very Very Good Kenny!!!!!!!

Journey back to pooh corner.......2004-07-10

I found this DVD well performed and produced. I deducted a star because I thought the commentary between a couple songs was a bit preachy, but the message was okay. It just seemed out of place and detracted from the concert. That said, this DVD is very enjoyable and the duet with Micheal McDonald was a nice touch.

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