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Category:    Home > Reviews > Soul > Vocal > Pop > Rock > Easy Listening > Instrumental > Alternative > Hard Rock > Heavy Metal > Rock Ope > Ceelo Green is Loberace: Live In Vegas (2013)/Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' And A Rockin' - Live In Sydney (2013)/Dream Theater: Live At Luna Park (2013/Eagle Blu-rays)/Europe: Live At Sweden Park - 30

Ceelo Green is Loberace: Live In Vegas (2013)/Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' And A Rockin' - Live In Sydney (2013)/Dream Theater: Live At Luna Park (2013/Eagle Blu-rays)/Europe: Live At Sweden Park - 30th Anniversary Show (2013/MVD Blu-ray + DVD)/George Thorogood & The Destroyers: Live At Montreux 2013/Move Me Brightly (Jerry Garcia 70th Birthday Tribute Concert 2013)/The Rolling Stones: Sweet Summer Sun - Hyde Park Live (2013)/Saga: Spin It Again! Live In Munich (2013/Eagle Blu-rays)/The Who: Tommy - Super Deluxe Edition (1968/Universal Music Blu-ray + CDs Box Set)


Picture: B- (Europe DVD/Saga: C+/Tommy has no video) Sound: B (Move: B-/Europe DVD: C+) Extras: C/C/C+/C+/C/C/C/C/A- Main Programs: C+/B-/C+/B-/C+/B-/B-/C/A+



The holiday season brings a slew of new music releases, but more than usual so far, the video releases and advanced audio format releases are the highest we have ever seen them. Music Blu-rays are coming out all over the place and Universal Music is releasing the all audio Blu-ray Pure Audio albums they issued overseas. Here is the first wave of mostly video releases relying on legacy acts, including a newer artist who has one impersonated!


First we have the ever bizarre Ceelo Green is Loberace: Live In Vegas (2013) which has plenty of odd clothes, odd versions of vintage disco-era staples Le Freak & Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?, has someone coming out (no pun intended) to pretend to play Culture Club lead singer Boy George and lip sync his songs and then the show goes overboard on gaudiness, excess and flat flash. Then it gets odder as it moves on. For fans only, his singing is an acquired taste to say the least...



Cliff Richard: Still Reelin' And A Rockin' - Live In Sydney (2013) has the legendary British vocalist with selling out the Sydney Opera House, performing hits going back to the 1950s and offering some great stories in between his songs. Though I have liked some of his hits, I was not very happy with the 2003 World Tour DVD he issued many years ago and here is my coverage of that one:


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2870/Cliff+Richard+-+The+World+Tour+(2003


This is a more competent performance overall, save the fact that his voice is fading, his showmanship still in tact and in his early 70s deserves kudos for being able to ply for 2 hours. However, the 36 hits performed are uneven at best and the show was better for the stories than performances, though he does have a good backup band and backup singers. Good audience too.



Dream Theater: Live At Luna Park (2013) has the popular band effectively delivering an extended repertoire of their fans favorites and though they have not had many big hits, their following is inarguable and while this is decent introduction to their work, not much of it stuck with me. I get the fans loving them and they are an intelligent, talented act, but this is longer than anything on this list (including the Tommy set, unless you add all the bonus tracks) and is therefore an endurance test for most of us, but likely manna for fans.



Europe: Live At Sweden Park - 30th Anniversary Show (2013) has the band known for their hits Carrie and The Final Countdown delivering an anniversary show with another enthused audience, but oddly, lead singer Joey Tempest has the voice but the band decides to do the songs at 3/4ths actual speed, dragging this out and sapping the energy from their material that made them a hit to begin with. Scott Gorham guests on Jailbreak and Michael Schenker (who we've covered several times) shows up on Lights Out, so again disappointment but he show at least has some good moments and is not as flat as it might otherwise have been.



George Thorogood & The Destroyers: Live At Montreux 2013 is the second concert by the raw singer/guitarists covering much of the same material he did years ago in his 30th Anniversary Tour DVD that we looked at here:


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1592/George+Thorogood+&+The+Destroyers+30th+Anniv


The two shows are very similar, but the performance here is a little rougher and weaker than the former, though this disc looks and sounds better than that DVD, so it is almost a draw, though a Blu-ray of that show would likely outdo this with ease technically so again, we have a for fans affair, but he gets points for getting in there and giving it his all.



Move Me Brightly features the likes of Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Perry Farrell, Carlos Santana, Sammy Hagar and an amazing group of fellow musicians in what is a combination documentary and concert program celebrating Jerry Garcia in a 70th Birthday Tribute Concert. Actor (and fan) Luke Wilson narrates this lavish tip of the hat to the late lead singer of the Grateful Dead and though it is a fans-only affair, there is more here than just such narrow content. Not bad.



If you see the title The Rolling Stones: Sweet Summer Sun - Hyde Park Live, you may mistake it for their classic 1969 concert that resulted in the 1969 Rockumentary film Stone In The Park, but it is not. For those unfamiliar with the film and concert can read this coverage of the U.K. Import Region B Blu-ray, especially interesting as it still has not been issued in the U.S.:


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11762/Bye+Bye+Birdie+(1963/Columbia/Twilight+Time+Li


Though Mick Jagger's voice is fading like Cliff Richard, he still manages to deliver the best he can as the band celebrates a half-century together and have a personal triumph returning to Hyde Park as they had just lost Brian Jones before that 1969 show. Though Jagger's voice can loose its fullness at times, the band can still pay and often make up for that occurrence, but the band is having as much fun as the crowd and it is better than you might expect. This is something like the 17th Stones title we have covered to date!



Saga: Spin It Again! Live In Munich is the last of the concerts we have here, but sadly the poorest here and weakest release on the list as the show has some of the dragging issues the Europe show had, but they do not totally overcome their setbacks. The band's big 1983 Pop hit was On The Loose, performed here among 19 tracks from their then-record label Portrait, who also had Cyndi Lauper's big debut the same year. This is more of a fan affair than anything on the list, but even some of them might be disappointed.



Last but not least is a new expanded edition of one of the greatest albums ever recorded in music history, the original 1968 version of the first-ever Rock Opera. The Who: Tommy - Super Deluxe Edition tries to top the terrific Deluxe Edition double CD/SA-CD set (whose main disc of the album also had it introduced in a new 5.1 DSD mix in the enduring Super Audio CD format) and we reviewed the album and that edition at this link:


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1923/The+Who+-+Tommy+SACD+++Live+At+The+Isle



Needless to say the album continues to be one of the all-time greats and deserves this new edition. Like the bonus disc of the previous set, we get a new set of more Demos & Outtakes on CD 2, the second for four discs in this elaborate box set. 20 of the 25 have never been issued before, are very impressive and makes this yet another set like that one and the Mobile Fidelity Gold CD set of the album for the most diehard fans to go and get. It also gives new insight to how brilliant the making of the masterpiece was.


The third disc is a audio-only Blu-ray of the album with PCM 2.0 Stereo and a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 96/24 5.1 lossless mix of the album that is based off of the 5.1 master used for the SA-CD as well as the less impressive, now out of print DVD-Audio edition of the album. The PCM is just fine for a 2-channel presentation, but the DTS-MA 5.1 mix is more a recycle of the DVD-Audio's MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) 96/24 mix with midrange compression issues and is absolutely no match for the SA-CD's incredible 5.1 mix, making it the low point of this set. Still, this will sadly be the first time many here the 5.1 mix, but this should have sounded better.


The fourth and final disc is a CD with a pastiche of The Who performing Tommy live in various venues. More on the further extras below.



All the concerts here are HD productions recorded in 1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition save Dream Theater, in 1080p, but it still has its share of flaws if not as many including crushed blacks, minor staircasing, some motion blur and other flaws, but Saga has this more often and is the poor HD performer. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the Europe DVD can actually equal it, so it ties for poorest picture performance on the list and again, Tommy has no image to offer.



All the Blu-rays including the already discussed audio only Tommy Blu-ray have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes and PCM 2.0 Stereo tracks, save Europe and Saga, which only have lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 with their PCM tracks and the Thorogood Blu-ray, which replaces its PCM with lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo while retaining its DTS-MA. I expected one of these would pull ahead ans be the sonic champ, but that was not to be with Tommy disappointing versus its SA-CD as noted and the Dolby Digital on Saga Blu and Europe DVD being the poorest performers here. At least there are no major sonic issues in most cases.


Extras for all releases except Cliff Richard include booklets on the music with Tommy offering an 80-page hardback! It also has a reproduction poster. Green, Richard, Dream, Europe, Thorogood and Saga have Behind The Scenes Interview featurettes, while Dream, Brightly and Stones have Bonus Performances and Dream further adds a Cartoon Intro, Trailer, multi-angle option version of the band performing Outcry and a Documentary.


Of course, Tommy became a live action feature film in 1975, directed by Ken Russell, released in a few fine Blu-ray editions. You can find other versions of Tommy on the site as well and read more about the Blu-rays at these links:


U.S. Version

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10424/Tommy+(1975/Sony+Blu-ray


Australian Version

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10866/TRON:+Legacy+(2010/Disney+Blu-ray+3D+w/Blu-



- Nicholas Sheffo


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