Seeing that Amon Amarth DVD thread, I got inspired, so here's a thread in which we talk about Live DVDs.
generally, I'm not often drawn back to live DVDs after I've watched them once already, but here are the ones I have and here's a brief review of them. In the cases of CD+DVD packages, the DVDs will take precedence over the CDs, however a short comment on the CDs will be given.
Anthrax - Return Of The Killer A's
Media: 1 DVD
Content: Selected Music Videos, misc live content, band fucking around on tour, etc.
Comment: Sometimes hilarious, but the content is rather generic and unfocused. If you're looking for a live concert DVD look elsewhere.
Video/Sound Quality: Varies, because of varied content.
Brighter Death Now - Disobey
Media: 1 Dualdisc CD/DVD
Content: Side one live CD (Rostok 1997.02.28), side two live DVD (Rostok 2003.05.17)
Comment: It's supposed to be a retrospective on their career, but first of all, this is the only Brighter Death Now release I own (a random buy from Audio Savant for some ridiculously cheap price) so I can't really comment. The packaging is a really nice embossed digi-DVD thing.
Video/Sound Quality: is between low level DVD and highest level bootleg quality.
Boyd Rice & Friends - Baptism By Fire
Media: 1 CD & 1 DVD
Content: Live Concert CD (Los Angeles, USA & Adelaide, Aus.) 8 Tracks. Live Concert DVD (Bologna, Italy)
Comment: The DVD is short, only 30 minutes or so. The DVD is mostly the industrial side of Boyd's repetoire, and is pretty much one neverending noise-fest from the first song Alpha to Total War. The CD is slightly mellower and has more Boyd Rice and Friends content.
Video/Sound Quality: The DVD has some sort of forced effect on it to make it seem like a more "underground" video recording, but it just looks like shit. Other than that, the quality is fairly decent, sound wise.
Carcass - Wake Up And Smell The Carcass
Media: 1 DVD
Content: All music videos, 2 live concerts, one Necroerotism era, one much earlier.
Comment: Decent package: lots of content, although appears unassuming from the physical packaging (plain DVD case).
Video/Sound Quality: The concerts are bootleg quality, although the Necroerotism one has a couple cameras (the content from the corporal jigsore quandary video was taken from this concert), and slightly better sound quality. The second concert is pretty passable in my opinion, unless you're a huge fan of early Carcass, which I'm not. The Music Videos are, well, studio quality.
Death In June - Live In Italy 1999
Media: 1 DVD
Content: 1 Live Concert (20 tracks, Take Care & Control Tour), and 3 Techno Music Videos from the Future Shock 2001 Team (WTF!)
Comment: The concert has a fairly decent overview of their better older songs, while has some of their more martial songs from the Take Care & Control album (as it was that tour). The Bonus content techno music videos are a big WTF to me, but strangely, for some reason, I seem to almost like them (I'm gay).
Video/Sound Quality: The video has the same effect applied on it as the Boyd Rice and Friends DVD (as they were both recorded at the same concert). Soundwise, it's ok.
Death: Live In L.A.
Media: 1 DVD
Content: 1 Live Concert from the Sound of Perseverance Tour
Comment: Pretty intense, and really shows what great musicians they were. Good "hits" setlist.
Video/Sound Quality: Better bootleg quality
Dream Theater - Live Scenes From New York
Media: 1 DVD
Content: The entire album "Scenes From A Memory" played live + encore of A Change of Seasons, Learning To Live, and Erotomania/Voices/The Silent Man.
Comment: Scenes From A Memory was a shit album, but the bonus content is ok
Video/Sound Quality: Excellent sound and video quality. Not surprising from a bunch of wankers like these guys.
Iron Maiden - Rock In Rio
Media: 2 DVD
Content: 1 Full 19 Song set from Rock In Rio, Brave New World - era Maiden, Disc 2 full of candid interviews with band members and stuff
Comment: It's fucking Iron Maiden, no comment necessary.
Video/Sound Quality: Excellent
Katatonia - The Black Sessions
Media: 2CD + 1 DVD
Content: 15 song set from Krakow Poland
Comment: The set is mostly new era Katatonia, with the exception of the encore (murder).
Video/Sound Quality: Excellent
Kreator - Live Kreation - Revisioned Glory
Media: 2CD + DVD
Content: Huge amount of content, but no actual singular live concert, but one that is patched together with video clips of tour happenings between, but a huge amount of them, plus all the music videos from 1982-2001.
Comment: I kind of wish it was just a singular concert instead of one put together of clips from their entire career, but for the amount of stuff in the package, and that the CDs are a singular concert it's ok.
Video/Sound Quality: Varies.
Metallica - Live Shit: Binge & Purge
Media: 3CD + 2DVD
Content: Lots.
Comment: The amount of content is overkill. Just the Justice tour concert on DVD would be nice, and that way the package wouldn't be $90 or whatever stupid high price it costs.
Video/Sound Quality: Good-Excellent.
Metallica - A Year And a Half In The Life Of...
Media: 1 DVD
Content: no concert here whatsoever. This is a documentry DVD, sort of the "Some Kind of Monster" DVD before they turned into homosexuals. However, it's them recording the black album in the studio, and on the black album tour, so whether or not they're homosexuals at this time is wholly disputable.
Comment: Pros: It's funny at times Cons: Ulrich is a queer.
Video/Sound Quality: Varies.
Opeth - Lamentations
Media: 1 DVD
Content: 1 Concert, 1 Interview, and 1 Documentry
Comment: The concert is largely their lighter, fluffier material, and the metal section only plays material from Blackwater Park and Deliverance. Not only that, they only play five "metal" songs, and they're probably the most popular (read, they could have chosen better ones) from those albums. Lame.
Video/Sound Quality: Good.
Pantera - Three Vulgar Videos From Hell
Media: 1 DVD
Content: Pantera's 3 home videos and bonus content.
Comment: Man, these guys give metalheads a bad name. You'd think that all metalheads do is smoke pot and drink all the time. It's pretty funny at times though.
Video/Sound Quality: Varies.
Slayer - Still Reigning
Media: 1 Concert
Content: Entire RiB album played live + some bonus songs.
Comment: Short, intense, and inexpensive!
Video/Sound Quality: Good.
Steve Vai - Alien Love Secrets
Total Comment: Steve Vai is a wanker. He wanks. He wanks on camera, live for all you to see.
Strapping Young Lad - For Those Aboot To Rock
Media: 1 DVD
Content: Devin Townsend dancing around with a guitar
Comment: If Devin Townsend wasn't a musician, he'd be comedian. Hilarious DVD, but I don't think I'll ever watch it again.
Video/Sound Quality: Pretty good.
I probably missed some, and as you can see, I got progressively bored with this over time.
YOUR TURN.
generally, I'm not often drawn back to live DVDs after I've watched them once already, but here are the ones I have and here's a brief review of them. In the cases of CD+DVD packages, the DVDs will take precedence over the CDs, however a short comment on the CDs will be given.
Anthrax - Return Of The Killer A's
Media: 1 DVD
Content: Selected Music Videos, misc live content, band fucking around on tour, etc.
Comment: Sometimes hilarious, but the content is rather generic and unfocused. If you're looking for a live concert DVD look elsewhere.
Video/Sound Quality: Varies, because of varied content.
Brighter Death Now - Disobey
Media: 1 Dualdisc CD/DVD
Content: Side one live CD (Rostok 1997.02.28), side two live DVD (Rostok 2003.05.17)
Comment: It's supposed to be a retrospective on their career, but first of all, this is the only Brighter Death Now release I own (a random buy from Audio Savant for some ridiculously cheap price) so I can't really comment. The packaging is a really nice embossed digi-DVD thing.
Video/Sound Quality: is between low level DVD and highest level bootleg quality.
Boyd Rice & Friends - Baptism By Fire
Media: 1 CD & 1 DVD
Content: Live Concert CD (Los Angeles, USA & Adelaide, Aus.) 8 Tracks. Live Concert DVD (Bologna, Italy)
Comment: The DVD is short, only 30 minutes or so. The DVD is mostly the industrial side of Boyd's repetoire, and is pretty much one neverending noise-fest from the first song Alpha to Total War. The CD is slightly mellower and has more Boyd Rice and Friends content.
Video/Sound Quality: The DVD has some sort of forced effect on it to make it seem like a more "underground" video recording, but it just looks like shit. Other than that, the quality is fairly decent, sound wise.
Carcass - Wake Up And Smell The Carcass
Media: 1 DVD
Content: All music videos, 2 live concerts, one Necroerotism era, one much earlier.
Comment: Decent package: lots of content, although appears unassuming from the physical packaging (plain DVD case).
Video/Sound Quality: The concerts are bootleg quality, although the Necroerotism one has a couple cameras (the content from the corporal jigsore quandary video was taken from this concert), and slightly better sound quality. The second concert is pretty passable in my opinion, unless you're a huge fan of early Carcass, which I'm not. The Music Videos are, well, studio quality.
Death In June - Live In Italy 1999
Media: 1 DVD
Content: 1 Live Concert (20 tracks, Take Care & Control Tour), and 3 Techno Music Videos from the Future Shock 2001 Team (WTF!)
Comment: The concert has a fairly decent overview of their better older songs, while has some of their more martial songs from the Take Care & Control album (as it was that tour). The Bonus content techno music videos are a big WTF to me, but strangely, for some reason, I seem to almost like them (I'm gay).
Video/Sound Quality: The video has the same effect applied on it as the Boyd Rice and Friends DVD (as they were both recorded at the same concert). Soundwise, it's ok.
Death: Live In L.A.
Media: 1 DVD
Content: 1 Live Concert from the Sound of Perseverance Tour
Comment: Pretty intense, and really shows what great musicians they were. Good "hits" setlist.
Video/Sound Quality: Better bootleg quality
Dream Theater - Live Scenes From New York
Media: 1 DVD
Content: The entire album "Scenes From A Memory" played live + encore of A Change of Seasons, Learning To Live, and Erotomania/Voices/The Silent Man.
Comment: Scenes From A Memory was a shit album, but the bonus content is ok
Video/Sound Quality: Excellent sound and video quality. Not surprising from a bunch of wankers like these guys.
Iron Maiden - Rock In Rio
Media: 2 DVD
Content: 1 Full 19 Song set from Rock In Rio, Brave New World - era Maiden, Disc 2 full of candid interviews with band members and stuff
Comment: It's fucking Iron Maiden, no comment necessary.
Video/Sound Quality: Excellent
Katatonia - The Black Sessions
Media: 2CD + 1 DVD
Content: 15 song set from Krakow Poland
Comment: The set is mostly new era Katatonia, with the exception of the encore (murder).
Video/Sound Quality: Excellent
Kreator - Live Kreation - Revisioned Glory
Media: 2CD + DVD
Content: Huge amount of content, but no actual singular live concert, but one that is patched together with video clips of tour happenings between, but a huge amount of them, plus all the music videos from 1982-2001.
Comment: I kind of wish it was just a singular concert instead of one put together of clips from their entire career, but for the amount of stuff in the package, and that the CDs are a singular concert it's ok.
Video/Sound Quality: Varies.
Metallica - Live Shit: Binge & Purge
Media: 3CD + 2DVD
Content: Lots.
Comment: The amount of content is overkill. Just the Justice tour concert on DVD would be nice, and that way the package wouldn't be $90 or whatever stupid high price it costs.
Video/Sound Quality: Good-Excellent.
Metallica - A Year And a Half In The Life Of...
Media: 1 DVD
Content: no concert here whatsoever. This is a documentry DVD, sort of the "Some Kind of Monster" DVD before they turned into homosexuals. However, it's them recording the black album in the studio, and on the black album tour, so whether or not they're homosexuals at this time is wholly disputable.
Comment: Pros: It's funny at times Cons: Ulrich is a queer.
Video/Sound Quality: Varies.
Opeth - Lamentations
Media: 1 DVD
Content: 1 Concert, 1 Interview, and 1 Documentry
Comment: The concert is largely their lighter, fluffier material, and the metal section only plays material from Blackwater Park and Deliverance. Not only that, they only play five "metal" songs, and they're probably the most popular (read, they could have chosen better ones) from those albums. Lame.
Video/Sound Quality: Good.
Pantera - Three Vulgar Videos From Hell
Media: 1 DVD
Content: Pantera's 3 home videos and bonus content.
Comment: Man, these guys give metalheads a bad name. You'd think that all metalheads do is smoke pot and drink all the time. It's pretty funny at times though.
Video/Sound Quality: Varies.
Slayer - Still Reigning
Media: 1 Concert
Content: Entire RiB album played live + some bonus songs.
Comment: Short, intense, and inexpensive!
Video/Sound Quality: Good.
Steve Vai - Alien Love Secrets
Total Comment: Steve Vai is a wanker. He wanks. He wanks on camera, live for all you to see.
Strapping Young Lad - For Those Aboot To Rock
Media: 1 DVD
Content: Devin Townsend dancing around with a guitar
Comment: If Devin Townsend wasn't a musician, he'd be comedian. Hilarious DVD, but I don't think I'll ever watch it again.
Video/Sound Quality: Pretty good.
I probably missed some, and as you can see, I got progressively bored with this over time.
YOUR TURN.