Blue Road (Deluxe Version)

Album Review

Just four years after releasing the brilliant DVD In Stereovision, Blue Rodeo delve back into the medium for a fascinating look inside the life of Canada's best band. Featuring an acoustic live set (spotlighting the intimate opening half of their Small Miracles tour chronicled at Massey Hall in Toronto February 29, 2008) and a surreal "documentary" that chronicles the band jamming on brand new songs from Greg Keelor's home, the DVD is a tour de force by itself, capturing the most intimate thoughts of the bandmembers and showcasing why they remain one of Canada's most popular bands. But the CD accompaniment is worth the price of admission alone. Containing an audio portion of the Massey Hall set (replete with popular hits like "Try" and "Bad Timing") yet brimming with rarities like Jim Cuddy's "Rebel" and Keelor's "Know Where You Go/Tell Me Your Dream" (with Melissa McClelland performing the vocal parts Sarah McLachlan made famous on Blue Rodeo's landmark Five Days in July album), Blue Road is an awesome counterpoint to BR's sprawling live opus, Just Like a Vacation — as intimate and private as Vacation was epic and massive. To top things off, there is even a brand new Keelor/Cuddy composition, "Losing You," which can be added to the canon of BR classics. With Blue Road, Blue Rodeo proves that they can take multimedia forms (much like they did with In Stereovision) and re-create the live experience of one of their shows. In this case, it's the sound of a landmark band stripped down to its core — like seeing a truly great group of performers in that rare club gig. The CD alone is fantastic — with the DVD concert footage, it's literally awe-inspiring.