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
