This DVD is of Northern funksters The Music at their 2003 tour's homecoming gig at The Blank Canvas, Leeds. Through the clouds of smoke (dry ice?), coloured lights and oceans of waving arms and flailing crowd-surfers, we see the young dance-rock crew struttin' their groovy stuff across the stage. The first thing that struck me (as I have never seen them live before... hopefully I'll get to see them one day...) was how much their songs sounded like the studio versions: I'd always thought that a lot of the sounds on their debut album "The Music" required assistance from drum machines, synths, keyboards etc., but they don't. The Music manage to get futuristic dance music out of 4 boys with guitars!
Singer Robert Harvey's voice seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it thing (like Marmite): unusual, unearthly, unique, unmistakable, and suited to The Music's own brand of dance rock, which seems to be situated somewhere between The Cure ("A Forest" etc.) and mainstream dance music (Bodyrockers, Ibiza music, etc.). It's a voice that wouldn't really be suited to many other genres but works with this.
Most of the tracks are from their excellent first album - a shame that there isn't more new stuff, but it's cos it was released way before they'd done their second album (the awesome "Welcome To The North") - including brill standout tracks "The Truth Is No Words", "The Dance", "Let Love Be The Healer", "Turn Out The Light", "The People" and "Take The Long Road And Walk It", plus the OK "The Dance" and "Disco". There are also 2 new instrumental tracks, the so-so "New Instrumental" and the absolutely dazzling "The Walls Get Smaller" (a studio version of it can be found as a "hidden track" on "Welcome To The North"), and "Jag Tune" which has now become a regular setlist fixture and live favourite despite being a B-side.
There's also little interview snippets between some of the songs, which are interesting, although no other extras.
The picture and sound quality, as ever with DVD, is great. At times you can't really see the band that well on stage (lots of smoke and lights and stuff...) but they're "all about the music" so it doesn't matter, as long as you can hear them! I quite like the antics of the crowd, as there's quite a few crowd-surfers, and sometimes in the shots taken from the crowd you can see silhouettes of their feet waving about in the air... a good crowd always adds to the viewing experience I think.
I'd definately recommend this to current fans, and anyone who is interested - for example, if you like The Rapture, you'll love The Music - although it might be better to wait for their next DVD (penciled in for release later this month) in case that has a good mix of old and new stuff (time will tell!).
It can tricky to describe The Music to people who have never heard them before, but I'd describe them as a combination of dance, funk and rock music all put together, or techno music being played by a rock band, with unusual (but likeable) vocals, and lyrics that generally don't seem to mean a lot but are damn good fun to sing along to anyway. Also very good music to dance to!
I got this DVD for £9.99 and even though it seems that there isn't a lot on it (only 12 songs plus the interviews), it's a lot for £9.99 - I've bought DVDs that cost the same or more but gave less than this - so it is really good value for money.
Pictures of The Music Live At Blank Canvas (DVD)
The Music
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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
I'm pleased you reviewed this - it's a good one too, I can see you've put quite a lot of work and effort into it. Good Job (i've rated it as very helpful). Lee.
thespurs 02.06.2005 22:47
Nice review. It does sound really good to me. Thanks for the information
![The Music, Live at Blank Canvas (2002) [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/80459258.jpg "The Music, Live at Blank Canvas (2002) [DVD]")
very helpful by (100%):
