Lenny Kravitz Reveals Life On the Road In ‘Just Let Go’ (DVD REVIEW)

kravitzLenny Kravitz was born into a celebrity family. His mother was actress Roxie Roker and his father Sy, an NBC News producer. He transformed into Romeo Blue, married an actress, spawned a daughter, became “Lenny Kravitz” again, released a zen-excitable album, became a rock star, an actor, a sexy man on the cover of Vanity Fair. But, as he says in an interview segment in the new DVD, Just Let Go: Lenny Kravitz Live, “I always wanted to be in a band.”

Most people think of Lenny as a solo artist: singer, musician, focal point in any concert, poster boy for tall cool sexy. Yet Kravitz doesn’t see the world in that same viewfinder; at least not all the time. For the man who puts together an album virtually by himself, his band is an extension, a part of the soul of his music, and he hopes that the new concert film makes that clear. “I am a solo artist but Just Let Go reflects on the relationship with my band and the camaraderie that develops between us while out on the road,” Kravitz explained upon the DVD’s release.

Filmed during his European tour last year, Just Let Go brings to life Lenny Kravitz on top of the world. He’s been in this life long enough to know what he wants and how he wants to present it to the people. A peace-loving soft spoken individual with a focus as strong as an eagle, every member of his band knows this and wants to help him accomplish it each night when the stage lights turn on. “When you’ve got 25,000 people waiting for you that paid their hard-earned money to be there,” Kravitz explains during one of the numerous talking-head segments interspersed throughout the live footage, “you owe them everything you’ve got on that night – whatever you got – you owe them all of it that night.”

The film itself has a 1970’s-ish look and feel, steering clear of the ultraslick techniques and camera angles that might make Kravitz and company look something other than real. In different interview pieces, some band members joke around while playing pool, talking about each other, the music and their boss while bass player Gail Ann Dorsey is more philosophical in her renderings on life within the Kravitz bubble. Kravitz believes each musician came to his band in a harmonic and spiritual way. Longtime guitar player Craig Ross and drummer Cindy Blackman Santana say nothing to dispel this notion and seeing them perform live, the euphonious fusion is quite apparent.

The songs themselves are jive-y and rocking, perfect corridors for Kravitz to get sexy, get sentimental, to scream out, “Let love rule” in a believable plea to the people. Hits include “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” “Fly Away,” “American Woman,” “Sister” and the blazing “New York City” and “Dancin’ Till Dawn.” In the bonus features, five songs get the unedited treatment, as a few songs in the bulk of the film are used as backdrops for other non-concert footage.

Just Let Go is available on both DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as other digital formats. One of the few complaints here, though, has to be the booklet, which contains photos and credits but no special commentary from Kravitz or a respected writer on the artist’s history. That would have been a nice adage into this glimpse of a musician who always wanted to be a musician with a band.

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