The Earnest Mask

Maybe the only surprising thing about Chickenfoot's critically dismissed 2009 debut was that anyone should have been surprised at its eventual commercial success. After all, there was just no way that America's average Joe classic rock consumer was going to resist spending all of that disposable beer money on a super-sized union between Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Chad Smith, no matter how meager its artistic rewards. Temptation embraced, the broth thickens with a second Chickenfoot LP – cheekily named Chickenfoot III – that offers much the same in terms of musical and intellectual stimuli (don't laugh) with its rather shameless though surely to-be-expected, exploitation of the vintage Van Hagar aesthetic.

You might want to consider Norah Jones: Live at Ronnie Scott's as something of a musical palate cleanser, especially if you're prone to go for larger, arena rock like concert videos. This particular performance is absolutely minimalist from both a staging standpoint (as can probably be gleaned from the almost unavoidably repetitive screenshots accompanying this review), but also due to the fact that Jones is part of a trio…