100 DVD Reviews in 100 Days

[gamrrpol]

Artist: Queensryche
DVD: Live Evolution
Year: 2001
Visuals: 4
Audio: 5
Performance: 4
Setlist: 4
Overall: 4

This is an outstanding DVD that captures the history of Queensryche but is plagued by a significant flaw.

First the good....extremely high production quality. The visuals are stunning, some of the best of any live DVD I've seen. The sound is also excellent, and especially shines in a 5.1 stereo mix. THe set-list is also very good, mixing the expected (Take Hold of the FLame, Silent Lucidity, Jet City Woman) with hidden gems (NM 156, Screaming in Digital). Heck, even the new songs from HITNF and Q2K work well, especially Hit The Black and The Right Side of My Mind. (My only complaints on the set-list is the absence of several songs from the CD version).

Taking all that into consideration...I'd be more than willing to give this 5 stars and rank it among the top live DVDs out there. Unfortunately, Kelly Gray is in the damn thing. You remember him don't you? The guy who replaced Chris Degarmo when he left QR after 15 years? Yeah, Kelly Gray, also known as Candlebox's producer. Yeah, he plays guitar as well.

Too bad he looks like a total dork and isn't much of a guitar player. You know how new guitarists will rely on incessant use of the wah-wah pedal to make up for the lack of skill? Yeah, that's Gray. He is so out of place among an accomplished band banging out Prog-metal classics that I cringe every time he's shown on screen.

Otherwise this is a great DVD..and if you're a QR it is a must-buy.

NM 156

[Rodeo]

Interesting idea for a thread and very informative so far! Especially since it appears I'm far less perceptive about most aspects you discuss.
I won't necessarily change my opinion (fat chance) but I'll check often...

I also have Gorillaz' Demon Days. One of my favourite bands, but I only watched it once or twice. With most of their usual presentation absent I felt something was left to be desired, visually.

[gamrrpol]

Interesting idea for a thread and very informative so far! Especially since it appears I'm far less perceptive about most aspects you discuss.
I won't necessarily change my opinion (fat chance) but I'll check often...

I also have Gorillaz' Demon Days. One of my favourite bands, but I only watched it once or twice. With most of their usual presentation absent I felt something was left to be desired, visually.

Thanks for the comments.

I'm more of a "band" guy...I enjoy watching a small group of people play music live. If I had to choose between a massive stage show or a bunch of video / animation and a bare stage with four guys playing music I'd choose the latter. Just a matter of taste....

[gamrrpol]

Artist: Dio
DVD: We Rock
Year: 1983/1984
Visuals: 3
Audio: 3
Performance: 3
Setlist: 3
Overall: 3

This DVD seems to get a lot of love from many fans but I'm not feeling the vibe. On the positive side, you get a video document of Dio performing at the height of his skills and his band performing their best material. There are songs from two shows taken from the Last in Line tour. The band is in fine form with RJD's voice sounding as good as he ever did and the Vivian Campbell / Jimmy Bain / Vinnie Appice all making their usual stellar contributions.

The setlist is comprised of all great songs, including Dio classics such as Stand Up and Shout, We Rock and Don't Talk to Strangers. Also included are Black Sabbath gems such as Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules and Children of the Sea.

On the negative side, both video and audio are okay, even taking into account the fact this was recorded 25+ years ago. The images and sounds just don't seem very crisp. More notably, the band itself seems more like four individuals than a cohesive group. This was a bit of a dirty secret throughout Dio's solo career.....when the others on stage seemed more like side musicians than a tight band. This gives the entire performance a somewhat lackluster quality. Finally, there just isn't enough material here. I saw this tour and Dio played for two hours, yet the total time of these two shows is barely an hour and a half. This would be much more compelling if at least one of the shows had been included in its entirety.

All in all, if you're a big Dio fan this is a must-have, as it's the only real document from the best era of his solo career. If you're just only modestly interested in Dio, there's not enough here to compel a purchase.

We Rock

[gamrrpol]

Artist: Led Zeppelin
DVD: No title
Year: Various
Visuals: 5
Audio: 5
Performance: 5
Setlist: 5
Overall: 5

Simply, the best live music DVD ever sold. There are three key elements that combined to create this undeniably awesome product:

1. Performances - while there are some hiccups here and there, for the most part these are stellar performances. Zeppelin, despite their enormous success on vinyl and the airwaves, was a live band. This video captures that better than any of their live record/CD releases.

2. Jimmy Page's perfect remastering and restoration of both sound and images. Some of the video here was 35+ years old upon release, yet the images are pristine. You will simply not find a better looking....or sounding...live DVD release. This is a remarkable accomplishment since all of the shows occurred between 1970 and 1979

3. Comprehensive. These two DVD hold virtually all known video of Led Zeppelin. While they were enormously successful, they rarely played in front of cameras. For the band to collect every known video (with exception of official The Song Remains The Same recordings) and package them in one super high-quality release is a gift. I could easily have seen this material released piecemeal, without quality restoration (The Royal Albert Hall 1970; Knebworth 1979; Earls Court 1975), then restored and re-released....so that we ended up with six DVDs and multiple versions of the same material (check out the DVD options for Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and scores of older bands to see what I mean).

To get a one-time release the gives you pretty much all you're going to get...and have be of the absolute highest quality....Led Zeppelin has set the standard for what a live DVD should be.

As for the actual material...the 1970 show is great because it was before the band were stars, and they had to go on stage and win over every audience. It is Zep as few people ever saw them and they were very good. You can see the seedlings of their improvisations that would improve and grow over the years. There were more blues and less bombast but it was clear the four of them created something magical from their earliest efforts.

The Earl's Court show catches them at their heights....after they had become rock gods and before drugs and the R&Roll lifestyle started sapping the quality of their shows. For sheer watching enjoyment, these are the songs I enjoy most (especially the acoustic set and In My Time of Dying).

The Knebworth show is the "bloated" Zeppelin, and they're clearly not at the top of their game. And yet they're still very good...showing just how strong the songs were and how talented the musicians.

Bonus material such as a 3-song 1969 set in an Iceland public television studio in front of (maybe) 75 kids sitting on the floor is priceless.

In total, an absolute must-have for any fan of rock music.

That's The Way

[gamrrpol]

Artist: Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation
DVD: Soundstage: Live
Year: 2006
Visual: 4
Audio: 4
performance: 4
Setlist: 4
Overall: 4

Robert Plant's post-Zeppelin career has ranged far and wide but has rarely wavered in quality and honesty. Still, it was very surprising to me (a huge fan) that his 2005 release Mighty Re-Arranger featured arguably the best music he'd produced since his Zeppelin heyday. Luckily for us, the band featured on Re-Arranger was captured on the Soundstage series performing one of their rare shows.

Now, Robert Plant is 58 years old at this point and looks a lot like an aging hippie. But when he lets loose with one of his signature wails and holds the note during an energetic rendition of Shine it All Around, it's hard to hear the difference. Seriously, Plant has lost a little, but not as much as you'd expect. And he seems rejuvenated by the unique and interesting band he's surrounded himself with. They play a bewildering array of instruments to create unexpected versions of such Zep classics as No Quarter and Gallow's Pole. The originals from Plants recent work combine prog, folk, world and rock in a mesmerizing whirlwind of sound.

It all works amazingly well as the band combines older classics with excellent new songs from Plants two recent releases. It's all shot in a studio which results in a somewhat subdued audience, which is probably appropriate. There's nothing particularly special about the visuals or the sound but neither suffer either.

This isn't epic stuff, and it's unduly short (barely over an hour when his shows went 90+ minutes)...but it is Robert Plant surrounded by an excellent, tight, well-rehearsed band playing vital music. For me, that's enough.

Shine It All Around

[gamrrpol]

Artist: Iron Maiden
DVD: Flight 666
Year: 2008
Audio: 5
Visual: 5
Performance: 4.5
Set-list: 3.5
Overall: 4

As a fan of Iron Maiden from their very first record, but who basically outgrew them by the Somewhere in Time record, I'm an unlikely customer for their Flight 666 release. However, while I stopped buying their new albums in the late 80's, I still enjoyed their old stuff and always liked the band, as I they were honest and true to their roots throughout their career. So the opportunity to see the band playing songs from their mid-80's heyday captured with modern recording technologies made sense.

And I have to admit....I was very impressed with the band's vitality. This isn't a group of old geezers performing a nostalgia show, like most concerts featuring 80's-era bands. These guys absolutely ROCK throughout the show and the fans are equally energetic. Add the fact Bruce Dickinson hasn't lost anything from his voice (amazing) and the band itself is every bit as skilled as when I saw them in 1982 and you have a great live DVD.

As with most modern DVDs, the images are jaw-dropping and the 5.1 / PCM mix is solid. This just helps clarify just how good these songs are. Chosen exclusively from their 1980 releases, the entire concert is one IM hit after another. The songs have held up well over time and their performance just clarifies in my mind that what passes for a lot of "hard" music nowadays is very poorly played.

About the only complaint here is the set-list is almost identical to the Live After Death DVD release from 2008. I would have preferred a run-through of some of their more obscure or overlooked material from the early days (Transylvania, Murder in the Rue Morgue, Killers, Remember Tomorrow, Drifter, Phantom of the Opera, Wrathchild, Genghis Khan, Prodigal Son, Children of the Damned, The Prisoner, Where Eagles Dare, To Tame a Land - just to name a possible set-list off the top of my head). And I can imagine some younger fans would like to hear some of the post-early stuff.

But that's getting pretty picky. The accompanying documentary on the tour is also very interesting, but not something I would watch more than once or twice. If you're unfamiliar or vaguely familiar with Iron Maiden and don't own any of their other DVDs, I think this is a good one. If you're a mid-level fan, you probably have LADeath, and might not need this. If you're a die-hard, you already own it.

The Trooper

[gamrrpol]

Artist: Iron Maiden
DVD: Live After Death
Year: 1984
Visuals: 3
Audio: 4
Performance: 4.5
Setlist: 5
Extras: 5
Overall: 4.5

Really the Holy Grail for Iron Maiden fans. This is a 2-disc orgy of classic Iron Maiden performing at the peak of their career. The centerpiece is a complete version of the famous Long Beach, California show recorded during their equally famous World Slavery Tour in 1984.

I can still vividly recall seeing IM on that tour and rank that concert among the top I've ever seen; it was the best IM show of the six times I saw them. The setlist was top-notch from beginning to end, the band was on fire and the audience was crazy. To now have that show on DVD with surround sound is a true gift to all IM fans.

The only drawback is the bland visuals. Yes, this was recorded 25+ years ago, but it appears as if no effort was made to restore the visuals (as Jimmy Page did with the Led Zep material). It looks like a straight transfer from an ancient VHS tape. The 5.1 sound mix fares much better but the disc also gives the viewer the choice to hear the original stereo mix, which some prefer (but not me).

The LAD concert would be enough, but the 2.5 hours of bonus material make this a must-have for any IM fan. "Behind the Curtain" sees the band performing 7 songs on their initial foray into then-Communist lands. There's almost an hour form the band's first Rock in Rio performance in 1985 (expect horrible video-tape based visuals here). Finally, there's a full one hour documentary on the WSTour, a quick 3-song burst from their Texas visit (6 show in 6 cities) and a 20-minute photo gallery.

All-in-all, very much a worthwhile investment. Only the failure to restore the concert images prevents this from being a 5-star classic.

2 Minutes to Midnight

[gamrrpol]

Artist: Iron Maiden
DVD: The History Of Iron Maiden - Pt. 1: The Early Days
Years: 1980 - 1983
Visuals: 4
Audio: 3
Performance: 4
Setlist: 5
Overall: 5

It might seem illogical to give a DVD 3/4 stars for visuals and audio and a 5 overall rating but the content of this DVD is so rich and rewarding, it's impossible to give this any other rating. There's two discs here, one collects pretty much all live video of the band from their first three album tours and the second contains an exhaustive 90 minute documentary on the band's early days.

The live footage consists of three shows. By far the best of these is Live at the Rainbox which contains mostly material from their first album and features Paul D'Ianno on vocals. The quality of the images and sound on better than expected. I personally like D'Ianno and think the band lost something when his more "street" approach was replaced by the operatic vocals of Bruce Dickinson (not that it was worse with BD, just that something was lost). This show is just awesome, capturing the band as they were still proving themselves and just beginning to taste success.

The Beast Over Hammersmith show suffers from worse sound and a fascination with Bruce Dickinson even during instrumental sections. Still, it's the band performing (IMO) the best album they ever produced. Highlights include songs like 22 Acacia Avenue and The Prisoner, which I don't believe have been performed since this tour.

Less compelling is the Live at Dortmund show with new drummer Nicko McBrain. I'm in the minority, but have always preferred Clive Burr's skin work to Nicko...and this show also suffers from poor sound.

None of these shows features surround sound or, seemingly, any restoration whatsoever. I personally would like to have seen that effort made but the truth is much of this is "documentary" type material and not necessarily the kind of thing you're going to watch repeatedly (the Rainbow show being the exception).

Disc two is a treasure trove of material that will interest any IM fan. The documentary seemingly connects with anyone ever associated with the band and gives great insights into their early days. There's also video of the band the day their fist album was released (yes, it's grainy black and white handheld stuff, but still interesting). There's also a documentary produced in 1980 that looked at the budding "headbanging" scene that makes you shake your head. Finally, a couple tv appearances and some low-budget videos.

Add it all up and it is yet another must-have purchase for any fan of Maiden.

Phantom of the Opera

[exploder]

Glad to see that Iron Maiden(the best Metal band ever) is still going strong after so many years,and they aren't stopping anytime soon.