War’s Greatest Hits Live DVD is two hours of solid, War fun. And it’s quite evident that the audience is not having any more of a good time than the musicians. Lonnie Jordan, the only remaining original member of the group, admitted in an interview to stage fright which still bugs him, and I think it was evident in the first 10-15 minutes of their performance. Understood, since this performance was with the still-getting-broken-in, new members of the band. This is exemplified by Jordan chattering nervously during the breaks, but he quickly settles down into some solid get-down music. The transformation is clearly visible in Jordan’s change in attitude, posture, and looseness.

When you’re a new band and you have a glitch or two in your performance, the audience can be forgiving. When you’ve rocked their socks off numerous times in the past, even though only one of the original members is returning, you’re expected to have that old black magic you weave so well. (Thanks to Johnny Mercer, the writer of these lyrics I just used.)

A sold out crowd at a venue like the Grove in Anaheim can disconcert anybody.  But it didn’t take long for War to have this eager audience eating out of their hands. This crowd was so eager to be mightily, funkily rocked that they reminded me of seagulls, swooping in and grabbing even a lit cigarette out the air when a smoker flipped one across the rail at the beach. Anything that War would have thrown out at them was a slam-dunk. It was nearly as much a feeding frenzy as it was with the seagulls.

The show's opening selection is a nice easy lope, a hip, laidback version of “The World Is A Ghetto,” in a very soulful, slow cha-cha. Before the music segues into “Get Down” several minutes later, we get a good opportunity to see some of the magic that Mitch Kashmar does on harp, and Fernando Harkless does on sax. If neither of them played another lick, they’d have earned their pay for the entire performance.