I know it has been a while, but I felt I needed to write something. So I have been watching Carbon Leaf's Live, Acoustic...And In Cinemascope. This is an Acoustic DVD and two CD set that they released last year. It was recorded in a studio that they recorded in called In Your Ear Studios. This is the most stripped down I have ever seen the band. It is just five guys on stools playing for a small intimate audience. With it being so stripped down you can really concentrate on the musicianship. Carter Gravatt, the bands lead guitarist trades in his guitar for a mandolin for most of the songs. He can play anything with strings. He is so good. He fills in the guitar parts with the mandolin and they totally make sense. Barry Privett the lead singer has never sounded better. With the advent of lip synching and studio effects, it is nice to hear his voice sounding like the CD with no enhancements. The songs cover their whole catalog which is great being able to hear their older songs that they don't bring out very often, such as November (Make Believe), and Attica's flowerbox window. The thing that really distinguishes this show from a normal Carbon Leaf show is the energy. Regular Carbon Leaf Shows are high energy affairs with plenty of dancing. This was much more laid back. Terry Clark the bands rhythm guitarist even mentioned that they were trading energy for staying in tune.
The tuning of the instruments lead to a lot of stories in between songs while the rest of the band was tuning their instruments. It really showed off the bands sense of humor and you get to learn about the inception of the songs. You get a lot more of this in the extras on the DVD which are great. The extras consist of outtakes of the band talking between the songs, as well as a Q&A from the audience. The extras also include two songs from an electric show that they played at the National in Virginia. I really would have liked to have seen more of that show. This is Just for the DVD. In the package is also a 2 CD set of the show. The sound quality is excellent. Here is a sample from the DVD. It is a song called Blue Ridge Laughing. Enjoy
