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Topic: ELO: Live at Wembly (Special Edition, remastered) DVD Review
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted October 31, 2008 05:24 PM
I have always loved this concert, but the original release of this concert from about ten years ago (or so), had absolutely horrible sound, and the video was sometimes cloudy and so, though I am a lifelong ELO fan, I was disappointed.
I had heard that "Eagle Vision" had released this on DVD and I was skeptical. What could you do with sound quality on 1978 videotape?
A whole heck of a lot!!
What I didn't know was that this concert WAS recorded apart from the videotape, and what Eagle Vision did was remaster those live tapes. Another thing I didn't know about the original release of this was that they had artificially added into the live mixes
audio tapes from the original albums, which made for an extremely bloated sound, incredibly messy.
So, how does the audio sound now?
This is the ACTUAL live performance as captured that very night!
(We even hear Jeff Lynne flub one of the lines from "Sweet Talkin Woman"). Where you couldn't even hear the live strings from the Violins and Cello's before, they are CLEARLY heard now.
Bev's drums are very clear and there are a lot of great drum riffs that just weren't there in the first DVD. The vocals are very good, (though, at times, are slightly buried, but there was so much going on sonic-ly at an ELO concert!).
A good example of the improvement in sound quality is Jeff's use of acoustic guitars on "Living Thing" and "Sweet talking Woman"
which are incredibly crisp!
Do not expect the kind of live sound quality that you would hear from todays live concerts which are recorded and mixed with the quality of studio mastering, but if you owned the other version of this on DVD, I really encourage you to get this DVD.
This edition does not have the "Video album" from "Discovery" that the earlier version had, and so, if you have that earlier version, stick that DVD in with this one.
This special edition ALSO has a complete reproduction of the program that was either sold or handed out the night of this special concert as well, (including all the ads as well!), and it is a very nice edition to this.
I should mention that the actual video had been filtered and restored as well, representing crisp dark blacks, and is a good deal sharper as well.
I heart-fully recommend this new edition!
If one of you fine chaps have a copy of this new edition of this DVD, could you please upload the cover from it?
The original edition? 2.5 stars
This edition? 5 stars ... truly earned, I really felt like I was there!
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted November 01, 2008 09:51 AM
John, you'll notice, on this new version, that the "miming" quality is gone, it's the actual song live.
I know what your saying however, and the main reason why is that there were a lot of extra tapes used on the show. As I stated in the review, they went back to the actual LIVE performance, and this is what is presented here.
It sounds like, though live, they did use some of they're string tracks to augment thier LIVE strings, as they just have the one violin and and two cello's.
Yes, I was strongly influenced in my own music by ELO. Though i never had the luxury of live strings, I have a magnificent Roland JW50 keyboard with very exceptable strings so that, if you divide down the tracks (one at a time) into the mix, the strings sound nearly perfect, so I was able to get a very full orchestral sound to my somewhat EURO-pop sound that I adored so!
I've never outgrown the love for ELO or the Beatles ...
but then, why should I?
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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