SANTANA – Santana IV: Live At The House Of Blues Las Vegas 2CD+DVD (Eagle Rock)

Fronted by Mexican/American guitarist Carlos Santana, this band were formed in 1967 and have sold 90 million records along the way. Their Latin infusion to the rock has proven popular on vinyl, on stage and on the radio ever since. At times a constantly rotating line-up, the Santana IV album released earlier in 2016 saw a return to the classic line-up; recorded on the subsequent tour, this live album documents the band on stage covering tracks from across the Santana catalogue.

The bongo intro builds to ‘Soul Sacrifice’, a decent Latino rhythm and some solid guitar with segments of near shred.

The emphasis is on the band sound more than just Santana’s guitar, although the legendary Neal Schon does add some more than decent touches throughout, there’s some excellent interplay between the two. Central to the sound is the percussion,

Some of the tracks (especially the guitar work) here verge on hard rock and blues rock, but not coming to the mainstream attention because of the Latin leanings. The rich keyboards in places add an extra dimension too.

The video and sound are excellently recorded, and the crowd equally responsive. The one issue I have there is the editing out of any inter-song banter.

It’s good to have the audio alongside the video as the typically the DVD I’d only watch occasionally, the audio is a good backup.

Well worth exploring 7.5/10

Joe Geesin

David Matthews – Keyboards

Gregg Rolie – lead vocals, keyboards

Carlos Santana – guitar, vocals

Neal Schon – guitar

Benny Rietveld – bass

Michael Shrieve – drums

Michael Carabello – congas, percussion

Karl Perazzo – timbales, percussion

(CD Disc 1) (LP Side A) 1) Soul Sacrifice 2) Jingo 3) Evil Ways (LP Side B) 4) Everybody s Everything 5) Shake It 6) Anywhere You Want To Go 7) Medley: Choo Choo / All Aboard (LP Side C) 8) Samba Pa Ti 9) Medley: Batuka / No One To Depend On 10) Leave Me Alone (LP Side D) 11) Sueño (CD Disc 2) 12) Caminando 13) Medley: Blues Magic / Echizo (LP Side E) 14) Come As You Are 15) Yambu 16) Medley: Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen / Third Stone From The Sun / Oye Como Va / I Feel The Earth Move (LP Side F) 17) Medley: Love Makes The World Go Round / Shout / Them Changes (w/ Ronald Isley) 18) Freedom In Your Mind (w/ Ronald Isley) 19) Toussaint L Overture