For those of you who are into bands like Phish, Dave Matthews and The Grateful Dead you probably already know who this band is. For the rest of us The String Cheese Incident is made up of a group of fairly accomplished musicians from all different genres that are prone to playing very long songs. The songs tend to journey through all different styles from country to rock to jazz to blues and more. This disc features two different performances at the famous Fillmore in Denver.
Video
The vi…eo quality of this disc is a step above your usual live music disc. Colors are nice and punchy and fit nicely with the very sharp image. Shadow detail is exceptionally good and the reds are held nicely in check with no blooming visible. This is again a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer and it has been taken very good care off. Next to Bruce Springsteen Live in New York this is one of the best concert DVD’s I have seen.
Audio
The audio is a both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 and it shines. With a band that has a fairly varied sound the audio track does a great job of making sure that it all brought together into one nice tight little package. The front image is wide and nicely detailed with surprisingly good depth as well. The rear channels do a great job of conveying the ambience and crowd sounds to very good effect. The kick drum also makes good use of the sub without sounding fat and loose. Again one of the best concert audio tracks I have heard.
Special Features
The most interesting feature of the extras are the multi-angle capabilities of these two discs. On both performances you have the option with a couple of songs to watch any of the band members for the duration of the jam; you will see video thumbnails in the bottom right corner indicating the multi-angle feature. This allows you to watch the different angles as well as keep an eye on the action in the other windows.
We have a short performance at The Red Lady Ball and a short featurette on Ricky Skaggs one of the guest musicians. Disc 2 gives you more of the aforementioned multi-angles as well as a trailer for a home movie of the boys in the band on the road called Waiting for the Snow to Fall and another featurette for Bill Kreutzmann the guest musician for the second performance. The menus are all scored and animated. The best part of the extras is without question the multi-angle feature with its unique thumbnails.
Final Thoughts
If you are a fan of this genre of music then you owe it to yourself to check this out. The video is above average and the audio is exceptional. Throw in the best multi-angle feature I have seen to date and you have a winner.
Special Features List
- Multi-angle capabilities
- Performance at The Red Lady Ball
- Short featurette on Ricky Skaggs
- Waiting for the Snow to Fall trailer
- Featurette for Bill Kreutzmann
