Lydia Lunch presents Willing Victims (Concert)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Concert: C+

 

 

Imagine if you will Martha Davis from The Motels with a gruffer voice doing blatant post-Punk music and talking about sex, desire and even simulating it on stage with more rawness and less of the dynamic suggestiveness of Only The Lonely.  Then add a strange Warhol-like picture show and you get the idea of this 6/21/03 concert from Lydia Lunch, the former Teenage Jesus & The Jerks.  That is exactly what Willing Victims offers, though this critic did not feel like a victim, but a by-stander to a gutsy (if limited) hour-long concert.

 

Miss Lunch (she’s no man’s desert!) offers the following full-course of compositions:

 

1)     Orphans

2)     Gospel Singer

3)     Run Through The Jungle

4)     Psychic Anthropology

5)     Twisted

6)     Itch

7)     The Need To Feed

8)     Meltdown

9)     The Void

10)  Lock Your Door

11)  Stinkfist

12)  Black Juju

13)  No Excuses

 

 

Well, with titles like that, organic is a term that fits.  After being impressed that Miss Lunch could give it her all in concert, I realized the repetitions and obviousness of much of the performances (however interesting) did not stay with me and I doubt a longer concert would have changed that.  No one can say she ever sold out and this is at least evidence that she is an authentic Woman Of Rock to be reckoned with.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image looks to have been taped on analog NTSC equipment, with faded images and analog video effects to boot, but that’s so Punk I guess.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 Stereo mix tries to spread the sound around, but the fidelity of the concert is so weak that Dolby compression cannot be blamed for its sonic shortcomings.  I could hear Miss Lunch most of the time.  There are no extras, save some clips from other MVD DVD releases and a two-page discography of Lunch CDs.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo