LOS ANGELES (Selena Fans Website) - Eight years after her shocking death at the hand of her fan club president,
Selena Quintanilla still can be heard frequently on Latin radio.
Somehow, that's not enough.
This concert video celebrates her enduring legacy of music, but also reminds you of how much we were denied by her murder. She was, indeed, the Latina Madonna, the vibrant bridge between Gloria Estefan's pioneering crossover success in the 1980s and the Ricky Martin-fueled explosion of 1999.
This show was filmed Feb. 26, 1995, in front of 64,000 fans at the Houston Astrodome. Selena was just seven weeks shy of turning 24, and just 33 days away from her death.
This performance shows her great command of the stage, in her self-designed clothing and dance moves. She opens the show with a medley of five classic disco tunes before switching to Spanish and singing the hits that had helped her win a Grammy Award two years earlier. Selena put 13 Spanish-language albums on the Billboard 200, an unprecedented achievement. All would chart after her death, including in each of the last five years.
The concert gives a great glimpse of her magic. She had charisma to spare, and her voice and movement kept her audience enthralled.
No one could ever have known the show would be Selena's last, but still you're left wishing those who decided to film that day had used more cameras and a little better direction and editing. You mostly see what came from two cameras, focused rightly on the star. But you rarely catch a solid glimpse of the other players, including her husband, Chris Perez, on guitar.
The show also feels a bit short and abruptly edited at 55 minutes. Like Selena's life, it ends far too soon.
The DVD also includes a behind-the-scenes documentary on the filming of the movie Selena. The narration is clumsy, sounding like it's done for a public school science class. But it has some fascinating scenes, such as comparisons between the dance moves Jennifer Lopez used in the film and those same moves shown onstage by Selena. Lopez was a better dancer than Selena, but thankfully she only lip-synched the vocals over recordings of the woman she portrayed in film.
We've heard Lopez sing; she's no Selena.
