The sheer visual spectacle of a smorgasbord of diverse and talented musicians all coming together inside what is not a typical pop music venue and performing one of the albums of that year (2005) together, as silhouettes against a brightly lit backdrop accompanied by flashes of cartoon imagery... (still a bit more of this huge sentence to go) is what makes this DVD unique. (Phew!)
Those who crammed inside the Manchester Opera House for five days in November 2005 witnessed something truly special. And for everybody else that experience has been brought to DVD for our enjoyment. I can't for the life of me think possible where else you would expect to find Neneh Cherry, Bootie Brown, Shaun Ryder, Ike Turner, MF DOOM, De La Soul, Root Manuva and the vocal talents of Dennis Hopper on the same hour of film.
The sound quality on this production is perfect. It does not put a foot wrong. One could easily be mistaken for thinking the entire studio album had been dubbed on top of the visuals. You can hear each and every instrument where it was intended to be and how it was intended to sound in crystal clear audio. I cannot imagine how breathtaking the DVD would be in full 5.1 surround sound, for in stereo it is magical.
Visually you are shown what the audience could and much, much more. Though still silhouettes you can see a lot more of what Damon Albarn's band of merry men & women are doing plus a close up look at all the well lit contributing performers. You can easily see Shaun Rider clumsily treading his way through the song "DARE" with Damon himself having to fill in for a couple of his miss timed lines, but thats all part of the wonderful fun.
Jamie Hewlett's animated backdrops add a lot to this performance. They are one of the few things that remind you of the animated band that are usually pushed ahead of the talent behind the music. These animations accompany the music perfectly and is the visual icing on the cake.
The one thing that lets this DVD down is the lack of extra features. Aside from watching the animated visuals on their own, there is nothing else extra for you to feast your eyes and ears upon. I would have thought that such a huge live event at this would make for an extremely interesting and entertaining making of feature or some sort of behind the scenes footage. But we don't get any of that. Perhaps they may have thought that something like that would bring down the super quality level set by the main feature but I would have thought it would be a nice insight.
Despite this, you get more than enough for your money. A unique live musical extravaganza presented to you to take home on a single disc.
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Music / Performing Arts, Comedy - Director: Trevor Nunn, Geoffrey Posner - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, Parental Guidance - Starring: Duncan Preston, Celia Imrie, Julie Walters, Victoria Wood, Jim Broadbent
Welcome to Ciao. Good review, very heplful. To get more ratings, I recommend rating other reveiws, that way the person whose review you rated will return the favour and rate yours. Also, by doing that your username will start to be recognised by other users. Good luck, Flo
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