The Dresden Dolls Live At The Roundhouse London
2006 (DTS DVD/Eagle Vision) + Lene Lovich Live From New York at Studio
54 (1981/MVD DVD)
Picture:
C+/C Sound: B/C Extras: C/C- Concerts: C+
Whether
you want to dub it cabaret, Punk, New Wave or any combination thereof, the work
of Lene Lovich and heirs to her work like The Dresden Dolls have been anything
but a retro revival of Germany in the early 1930s. Now, two DVDs have arrived showing these acts
at their most open. The results are mixed
in both cases, but rather definitive just the same. Lene
Lovich Live From New York at Studio 54 (1981) shows the groundbreaking
soloist playing a show that runs not long enough at less than an hour, but her
influence (all the way to Cyndi Lauper and Gwen Stefani) while The Dresden Dolls Live At The Roundhouse
London 2006 is energy filled and decent, but with more run on than
expected.
Both
concerts, especially the Lovich
taping, are historic and show women in fields still dominated by males, but these
ladies can more than hold their own and are accompanied by males in one way or
another. The Lovich tracks include:
1)
Details
2)
Jean
3)
Rocky Road
4)
Too Tender (To Touch)
5)
Say When
6)
Lucky Number
7)
New Toy
8)
Bird Song
9)
Angels
10) Home
11) One In A Million
Fast
forward to recent years and long after Lovichs influence took hold, here she
comes full circle as part of a 200 concert by The Dresden Dolls. The
mostly female band takes the cabaret bit very far, to the point that it may be
getting in the way of their music more so than they may realize. An interesting show at least and best, songs
include:
1)
Sex Changes
2)
Gravity
3)
Modern Moonlight
4)
Mrs. O
5)
Backstabber
6)
Coin-Operated Boy
7)
Two-Headed Boy
8)
Mandy Goes To Med School
9)
Lonesome Organist Rapes Page
Turner
10) Slide
11) The Jeep Song
12) Dirty Business
13) Shores Of California
14) Sing
15) Mein Herr
16) Mad World
17) Girl Anachronism
Needless
to say this disc is like no other live concert out there, so it wins points for
just trying to be different, even if that different is more like a circus than
a music concert.
The 1.33
X 1 color image on the Lovich disc is old analog NTSC tape that was not exactly
state of the art for that format at the time, but it is an historic
record. The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is
as weak and hardly stereo. The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the Dresden disc is shot in some kind
of HD, but the presentation here is weak.
If it is just improved definition, that would make sense. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is not bad, the
Dolby 2.0 weaker, but the DTS 5.1 is the track to play back for capturing all
the details of the overlapping nuttiness and music. It is the audiophile choice easily. Extras include backstage rehearsal footage
from the Lovich disc, while Missed
Me with Edward Ka-Spel & Delilah with Lovich are bonus tracks, along with
interviews and documentary footage on the Dresden
disc.
- Nicholas Sheffo