An Evening With Il Divo – Live In Barcelona (2009/Sony Music Blu-ray)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: C Concert: C+
In the
old days, when a music act was put together by industry insiders, you would get
anything from bubblegum pop, to one-hit wonders to a success like The
Monkees. Later, it would be more like
Milli Vanilli as the music business became more cynical and fell into
trouble. The latter is expected when you
run into an act founded by talent contest judge Simon Cowell, who has made many
mistakes in judging talent we will not even go into here. Il Divo consists of David Miller, Urs Buhler.
Sebastien Izambard and Carlos Marin and now on Blu-ray, An Evening With Il Divo – Live In Barcelona
offers the polished quartet in action.
They do
all kinds of international songs you may not have heard of and many you have,
but to dodge doing bad covers, they sing hits like The Winner Takes It All, Bridge
Over Troubled Waters, Nights In White
Satin and others in languages other than English. Yes, they can sing, but this tactic can go
both ways. In one way, it makes them
seem classy and smart, but it also is a way to dodge critics including people
who might pay to see them. These covers
are good, but it is a gimmick at worst and passable at best.
Singing
23 songs in a 2+ hour concert, a little of them can go a long way and I
wondered if Celine Dion would show up.
At least they don’t sing any AC/DC hits in a foreign language. All in all, this is not bad, yet they also
come across as a boy band for people too stuffy to admit they would ever listen
to boy bands. A little can go a long
way, but if you like them, you’ll probably enjoy this concert more than I did.
The 1080p
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image was shot in HD video and is very weak
more often than expected. For a recent
event, this should look much better than it does, but we get motion blur,
details uses and even the Armani clothes do not look as good as they should. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix is better and the
default highlight of the disc, but the soundfield can be lacking and this is
not as rich and warm as it should be, especially for this kind of music. Extras include a small paper insert with very
small print inside the Blur-ay case and behind the scenes featurette.
We have
seen them before form their guest appearances on Barbra Streisand’s 2006
concert tour, which you can read more about at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8694/Barbra+Streisand+%E2%80%93+The
- Nicholas Sheffo
