While she lacks charismatic stage presence, a distinctive voice, or great chops on guitar or keyboards, Sheryl Crow has nevertheless been delivering bestselling CDs and successfully touring for nearly two decades, ever since her 1993 breakout Tuesday Night Music Club. The reason for Crow's staying power is simple: like Carole King, she knows how to craft catchy songs that draw from a wide variety of genres, including rock, folk, pop, country, blues, soul, and gospel. This 2010 concert featuring Crow with her band the Thieves (all the usual instruments, plus a horn section) was filmed at Hollywood's beautiful Pantages Theatre at the end of a tour promoting the singer's latest, the Motown-inflected 100 Miles from Memphis, which accounts for half of the 16 songs here—including the hits “Our Love Is Fading” and “Summer Day,” as well as the somewhat misjudged, unimaginatively faithful cover of the Jackson 5's “I Want You Back.” In between cuts off the new release, Crow serves up a string of well-known hits, such as “All I Wanna Do,” “Every Day Is a Winding Road,” “If It Makes You Happy,” “My Favorite Mistake,” and “Soak Up the Sun.” While the concert has a bit of a perfunctory, manufactured feel overall, the band occasionally cuts loose, especially on “Roses and Moonlight” with an Isaac Hayes' Shaft-era sounding rhythm. Extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette with rehearsal footage of two more new songs: “Eye to Eye” and “Stop.” Presented in DTS-5.1 (DTS-HD 5.1 on the Blu-ray release), Dolby Digital 5.1, and LPCM stereo, this bargain-priced entry will certainly appeal to Crow's fans (who are legion). Recommended. (R. Pitman)
Sheryl Crow: Miles from Memphis—Live at the Pantages Theater
(2011) 116 min. DVD: $14.98, Blu-ray: $19.98. Eagle Rock Entertainment (avail. from most distributors). Volume 26, Issue 4
Sheryl Crow: Miles from Memphis—Live at the Pantages Theater
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
Order From Your Favorite Distributor Today: