Carole King is probably not well known among the younger crowd. In fact it ages me a bit that I like her so much. Her career spans three decades and more importantly, her influence is widely recognised in the work of current artists. Some of these contemporary artists who acknowledge her work include Mariah Carey, George Michael, Jewel and large variety of female artists.

This DVD is an 85 minute 1993 concert held in Hartford, Connecticut and it had her performing her most requested songs. 'Slash' from Guns'n'Roses plays in two of the tracks including Kylie Minogue's 'Locomotion' (!) - ok it's technically not hers but it sounds like she owns it.

There are sixteen tracks:

1. Hard Rock Cafe
2. Smackwater Jack
3. Up On The Roof
4. Beautiful
5. Do You Feel Love
6. Natural Woman
7. So Far Away
8. Hold Out For Love
9. Will You Love Me Tomorrow
10. Jazzman
11. Old Song Medley
12. It's Too Late
13. Chains
14. I Feel The Earth Move
15. You've Got A Friend
16. Locomotion

Video is 4:3 and of good quality. It is dualcoded r2 and r4. The camera remains locked on the stage with a variety of closeups and pans to various pieces (ie. backing vocals, drums etc.) There are a number of crowd shots and 'from the back' or rear balcony shots to take in the scope of the theater. Colours are generally dark with good contrast but deliberately average black levels. Skin tones are accurate. There is a purply cast that tends to envelop the stage. After the 'razzmattazz' of the Prince 1999 concert, it's a refreshing if sobering change. It's her style so be it.

There are two audio tracks, a Dolby Stereo 224k/s and a Dolby 5.1 at 448k/s - the review will focus on the 5.1 track. The Stereo track has reasonable fidelity but it is much lower in volume and while vocals seem fine enough, instruments suffer dramatically. For a artist who relies on an unadorned playing style with many instrument solos, more bitrate is needed. The grand piano sounds like a synth, the brasses don't sound brassy enough, you know what I mean.

The 5.1 is quite good in quality. The rears and bass receive little attention and the three fronts do the bulk. The frontstage vocal seems well integrated unlike other discs which have the single rooted only in the centre.

There are subtitles in a variety of European languages but they only engage when Carole has some audience banter or song intros. I thought it would be fun if they had English song subtitles for those karaoke events but no... :-)

There are no extras. This is Warnervision and that is their take on what a music DVD is. Just like a music CD but with moving pictures. You don't get extras on your music CD's so why expect it here? I'm being sarcastic...