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- Widescreen 1.78:1
- 16:9 Enhanced
- Dual Layer (RSDL 47.58)
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- English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
- English: DTS 5.1 Surround
- English: Dolby Digital Stereo
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Godsmack Live |
Aviva/Warner Vision .
R4 . COLOR . 82 mins .
M15+ . PAL |
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If your idea of What Pagans Are Up To Musically Lately consists entirely of images of fluffy, earthy and ethereal balladry along with a healthy dose of mythological imagery, a copy of The Craft on DVD and a year's supply of Charmed videotapes, then you probably need to get out more. Because while all of the above is obviously a stereotype, nobody really expected an alternative-grind-metal band to have pentagrams on their album artwork and not be invoking the dark red guy with the pointy head. But the unexpected happens; Godsmack lead singer Sully Erna is of the pagan persuasion, a fact that's probably scored a lot more press than it warrants despite the obligatory Song Title With The Word "Magick" In it. Godsmack are seriously loud. They sound like the bastard sons of an unholy union between Nine Inch Nails, Monster Magnet, Korn, Zodiac Mindwarp, Metallica and 1980s Seattle grunge, but manage to get away with all of the above by actually writing songs with decent choruses, a rush of over-the-top metal pyrotechnics that for once doesn't sound like it's supposed to be taken apart and analysed. You're supposed to jump around lots to this stuff. Don't believe us? Ask Sully. "When this song kicks in," he yells early in this live set recorded in the band's home state of Massachusetts, "I expect nothing but out-of-control in this crowd right in front of me, y'hear me? MYYYYOOOOOOOEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRR!!!" Sully doesn't really let up from there. He plays sections of the audience off against each other. He plays the entire audience off against last night's audience in a different city. He challenges the crowd to get more and more frenzied, and he does this mainly by prowling the stage like a Depeche Mode cover band singer recovering from an adrenaline overdose, doing grunty verses and big, soaring choruses, shouting "I wanna see those hands!" and populating the entire thing with a healthy and enthusiastic supply of sinister, guttural bursts of "MYYYOOOEEEAAAARRR!!!" Considering that your hapless reviewer (a) can't stand overblown metal bands and (b) had no idea who Godsmack were when he pressed 'play' on this DVD, it must come as no small recommendation when we say that this disc is actually enormously good fun, particularly when played loud. The band is committed and energetic, but never forgets that they're playing songs with, like, actual tunes and stuff (any death metal fans that have wandered in are presumably catered for by the epidemic of "MYYYOOOEEEAAAARRR!!!" throughout). And this 80-minute show is extremely well caught on video - the editing, which is never anything less than frenzied and hyperactive, makes up for the band's relatively static presence on a massive stage. Nine Inch Nails it ain't. Nobody's destroying anything here (though bassist Robbie Merrill throws his instrument to the wolves at the end of the show), the lighting rig is only the size of a small house instead of a minor planet, and none of the songs are about depression in the face of an influx of psychotic echidnas. (Actually, come to think of it, Nine Inch Nails could well be the Disaster Area of the new millennium, but we digress). Godsmack is big, loud, obnoxious fun, powered by a suitably silly band name, four hundred thousand watts worth of Marshall stacks, an inability to play any sound at a frequency that doesn't shift buildings to the left, and so many tats they make Ray Bradbury's mythical Illustrated Man seem like a pencil sketch by comparison. And hey, their record got banned from K-Mart in the US, proving once again that the only reason popsters like Britney are successful is because there are bands like Godsmack giving her extra space on mom 'n' pop retail shelves. Blame it on the things that make you go mmmmmyyyyyyyoeeaarr.
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Ah, a live concert shot on digital video in the USA. The very idea is enough to send fear through the most unfussy of DVD buyers, as thoughts immediately come to mind of a badly-converted-from-NTSC fuzzy and colourless picture and anaemic, out-of-sync audio. Put those thoughts out of your head right now. This disc gives fans the quality they deserve, coming with stunning video quality and in-your-face audio in three different formats. The 16:9 video, extremely well shot from an artistic point of view, is also of a high technical standard. Colour is key in any large-scale live rock show, and the super-vibrant colour palette of the computer-controlled lighting is captured perfectly here, the image crisp and clear and with a sense of both depth of field and immediacy. This is the second live concert on disc we've seen to date that really gives you the feeling of being there (the previous one was Sarah McLachlan's Mirrorball, which was shot on film). You can still tell this came from an NTSC master - there's that tell-tale "softness" if you look closely enough - but it's an excellent conversion, amongst the best we've seen. The encoding bitrate on this dual-layered disc is almost ludicrously high, which doesn't hurt quality any; there's plenty of spare space though. The layer change, at the 48 minute mark, is dreadful. It's negotiated quickly by the player, but the video and audio are briefly silenced each side of the change, meaning the pause is long and VERY noticeable (it's between songs, but the crowd noise interruption is quite startling). Audio is provided in two 5.1 surround formats - Dolby Digital and DTS - along with good old-fashioned stereo. The music mixes are both by versatile engineer Jim Barton, an expatriate Australian who's spent the last decade and a bit being very much in demand in the US. Barton's choice for the 5.1 mix is as expected - rather than tackily fly instruments around the room, he's recreated the concert environment from the perspective of the audience; it's extremely involving, and where other 5.1 live mixes are overly showy this one sounds completely believable. It's loaded with deep bass content, and those with subwoofers will be well pleased at how much they can upset their neighbours; the centre channel is less prominent than you might expect, but this appears to have been a deliberate mix choice. Of the two 5.1 coding methods, there's actually very little to separate the Dolby and DTS streams from each other, despite the increased DTS bitrate. Typically, LFE bass is more prominent on the DTS version (though for once the overall DTS track isn't louder than its competitor's), but on a purely aesthetic level we found the Dolby Digital track to be more pleasing overall - the DTS track sounded, for some reason, a bit "compressed" dynamically. The stereo mix is perfectly fine, and the better option for those without multi-channel systems due to the amount of low bass content that would be lost in a downmix of the 5.1 tracks. There are no extras, unless you count the nifty sliding track menu as an extra (okay, we'll give it a point for that, then).
LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=1425
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And I quote... |
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Review Equipment |
- DVD Player:
Sony DVP-NS300
- TV:
Panasonic - The One
- Receiver:
Sony STR-DB870
- Speakers:
Klipsch Tangent 500
- Centre Speaker:
Panasonic
- Surrounds:
Jamo
- Audio Cables:
Standard Optical
- Video Cables:
Monster s-video
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