Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Audiophilander (A) on April 19, 2006 at 22:48:12

In Reply to: Best sounding music DVDs out there posted by hexenboden on April 19, 2006 at 15:41:15:

Joe Bonamassa - Live at Rockpalast (WS/anamorphic); absolutely stunning live blues/rock performance from one of the best blues guitarists around, in the tradition of the prime Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn accented by phenomenal recording. He's only 28, but you'd never know it from his stage presence, diverse technique and experienced playing.

Robin Trower - Live at Rockpalast (WS/anamorphic), recorded last year as a celebration of his (60th?) birthday, this is well recorded and a supurb performance of old and new Trower material

Rush - R30 (WS/anamorphic) & Rush in Rio (WS, but standard LBX; debatable sound mix choices as the group was trying to recreate the audience listening experience with varying degrees of success, but a great performance nonetheless, with supurb Working Man encore)

Procol Harum - Live at Union Chapel (WS/anamorphic with excellent audio too!), reflects most of their hits and more recent recordings, including the rarely played extended version of Whiter Shade of Pale and stand-out performances of Simple Sister and Salty Dog.

Blind Faith - (standard academy 4:3 aspect ratio & only available on DVD in PAL format, but will probably be available domestically sometime in the near future for those who don't own region free players); this release has some limitations due to the age of the film, but visually it's much better than expected and sound-wise it was even better than I'd hoped.

Jimi Hendrix - Blue Wild Angel (academy 4:3 aspect ratio), for a 1970 filmed concert this reconstruction looks and sounds phenomenal; this is far from his greatest performance, but it still shows off his awesome skills and the reconstruction/restoration pulls together edited footage that brings the earlier releases of this performance up several notches, IMO. Stand-out performances of Red House, a lengthy albeit problem-plagued Machine Gun and the only known filmed version of Dolly Dagger a song that had been truncated in an earlier incarnation of the film and is now complete with all verses and solo breaks.

Big Head Todd and the Monsters - Live at the Fillmore (WS/anamorphic); one of the new breed of blues masters making inroads to a younger hipper audience. Not as hook laden or dramatic as some of the older school blues masters, but excellent nonetheless.

Well, this will do for now.

Cheers,
AuPh