Music / Concert

An Evening With Kevin Smith 2 – Evening Harder

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 7th, 2006

I can’t imagine anyone who’s not a Kevin Smith fan renting, buying, or otherwise arranging to view this DVD. The gist of this review is simple: if you like Kevin Smith and/or his work, you’ll enjoy An Evening With Kevin Smith 2 – Evening Harder.

Since I haven’t seen the original An Evening With Kevin Smith, I can’t offer a comparison. That said, I’d be willing to guess that this release is both more of the same and a whole new experience.

This sequel DVD set presents two standup “concerts” on two discs
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Cedric the Entertainer – Taking You Higher

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 8th, 2006

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Cedric the Entertainer – Taking You Higher is Cedric’s first solo HBO Comedy Special. He made his mark in the biz as a top-notch, critically acclaimed stand-up comedian, and has also appeared in a series of lackluster films like Be Cool and Big Momma’s House. I don’t think many would argue against the assertion that Cedric is at his best on stage, doing stand-up.

For proof, look to this hour-long HBO Special. Cedric the Entertainer lives up to his name in this show, which offers up about four parts stand-up, one part song and dance.
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Bob Newhart – Button Down Concert

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 30th, 2006

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Synopsis

I can honestly say that a one-hour standup special might result in my shortest review ever, but if that’s how the chips fall this time, so be it. Bob Newhart is certainly not without his admirers, he’s been an established comedic force for decades. He didn’t get his big break until the ‘60s, and parlayed that success into television shows in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and aside from the occasional movie appearance, shows up from time to time with late night talk show hosts that run out of material.

Dennis Miller – All In

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 28th, 2006

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Synopsis

For the longest time, Dennis Miller was known as the guy who could subreference unlike any other comedian, with tactical precision and timing long before anyone had heard of the Gilmore Girls. While some of the material may have been a bit redundant, he certainly put a spin to it unlike any other.

Then the events of September 11 happened, and the predominant opinion is that Miller went for smart comic (and a failed stint on Monday Night Football) to a Fox News loving, Democratic/liberal l…
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Jimi Plays Monterey/Shake! Otis at Monterey

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 28th, 2006

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There was a time when no major groundbreaking events were captured on film. The thing is, it’s sometimes hard to know when something of historical significance is going to occur. Major events such as World War II and the fall of the Berlin wall were planned in advance (so to speak), so it was easy to set-up a camera and capture the event. Spontaneous events, however, were mostly passed over. As technology has progressed, however, it has become easier to capture important and notable moments on the fly. September 11, …
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Monterey Pop Festival

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 20th, 2006

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The 60’s have become something of a caricature of themselves. Take a girl with straight hair and flowers, throw in a “groovy” and a “man”, add some grainy photography, and you’re all ready to go. It is sometimes hard to remember that there was a time when this was not a kitchy formula, it was just the way that it was. This film is so authentically steeped in 60’s hippie culture that it almost doesn’t seem real when the footage starts rolling. Once the film begins to sink in, though, the viewer is completely drawn in …
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Jim Brickman at the Magic Kingdom – The Disney Songbook

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 4th, 2006

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Synopsis

Everything I know about Jim Brickman could fit into a couple hundred word review about a concert performance he put on at the Walt Disney World resort. But upon further review, Brickman has been reaching out to the older generation for a few years now, producing collaborations and appearing at high profile events to bring recognition to his work.

He’s collaborated with quite a few people, and on his live performance at Disney’s Magic Kingdom, the mighty Michael Bolton makes an extended ap…
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Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 4th, 2006

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Before it became a somewhat famous regional barbecue house (I kid, I kid!) red, hot and blue was another name for the Red Hot Organization, a group designed to help fight the AIDS epidemic. Back in the early and mid ’90s kids, AIDS was raging on through the land, and Ronald Reagan did nothing to stop it. In fact, he was injecting homosexuals with AIDS while delivering crack into the ghetto.
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Teddy: Live in ’79

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 28th, 2006

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Teddy Pendergrass, one of the lesser known soul rebels of the seventies, comes to DVD in this lackluster edition, which purports to be 80 minutes – but that’s only true if you factor into the running time the one bonus feature. This fact could be a detriment to fans of Teddy’s music. For me, however, it was a relief to discover the actual concert only ran about an hour. There was nothing here to justify the man’s status as some kind of legend, as his audience interactions and movements on stage were limited in scope …
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Moby: Hotel Tour 2005

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 13th, 2006

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Synopsis

As one who is not a fan of much techno and even less a fan of Moby, it was a little surprising to see what my thoughts were on a recent live DVD that the artist has released (brief political soapbox rant commencing). Quite frankly, I’m not a fan of the man’s politics and his far-left rantings and ravings, and find his urge to help peddle Snapple-like tea beverages a little interesting. What I find even more interesting, nay a bit ironic is that among those that were thanked for the singer’s May 25,…
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Director Series Volume 1 – The Work of Director Spike Jonze

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 31st, 2006

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Synopsis

An item of secret desire for geeks like me was to get Spike Jonze’s videos on DVD. In the mid ‘90s, Jonze arguably was THE director to go to if you wanted your MTV submission to be memorable, talked about, and perhaps most importantly, spur record sales. If you remember the wacky video you saw on MTV that one time, chances are Spike directed it. Even after the critical success in Hollywood with an Oscar nomination for directing Being John Malkovich and before working on Adaptation, he…
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Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 19th, 2006

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Synopsis

The world greatest rock band’s story about the rise to power, born from Satan, and ready to rock the world, may not be as accurate as one would perceive. As Jack Black and Kyle Gass (Jables and KG to those in the know), Tenacious D received a small run of episodes during the HBO series Mr. Show in 1999 that resulted in good word of mouth for the pair. It was only until last year, when the long-awaited first album finally dropped, that the world discovered just how good they were. And the alb…
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Whoopi: Back to Broadway

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 11th, 2006

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Synopsis

I’ve long held the somewhat chauvinistic belief that female stand up comedians are simply not funny. I’ve given people like Ellen DeGeneres, Paula Poundstone and Margaret Cho as much unbiased time as I can give, and I just don’t laugh at them. Their sense of humor is softer than any comparable male comedians, and is far more subtle. Does that make me a cro-magnon male with a large forehead? Probably.

To her credit, Whoopi Goldberg is the closest thing there is to an exception to the rule,…
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Led Zeppelin

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2005

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Synopsis

Many people have provided screwed up metaphors as to just how important Led Zeppelin has been to music in the last 35 years. So of course, I’ve gotta throw one in. Imagine today’s rock musicians as workers in a factory, all punching in and out for work at a time clock each day. Led Zeppelin is the clock. There really was nothing before it that could compare to it, and while there have been some imitators, real or implied (Whitesnake and Kingdom Come being two names from the 80’s hair band metal day…
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Lightning in a Bottle

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 7th, 2005

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So how come a doughy looking white guy like me enjoyed these performances, and didn’t watch a single part of the Martin Scorsese miniseries that covered Blues music? It’s because growing up, the first big musical influence in my life was Jimi Hendrix, so I was a bit familiar with the Electric Blues sound that Jimi had. And names like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Leadbelly were not new ones to me. And with the help of Led Zeppelin, I also learned about Robert Johnson too.

So while Antoine Fuqua (King Ar…
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The Complete Monterey Pop Festival

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 28th, 2005

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The Monterey Pop Festival has been mostly ignored by a lot of people, compared to the two other two large concerts that occurred after it, Woodstock, and Altamont. Those who do remember Monterey always mention the one incident it is most known for, Jimi Hendrix’ appearance on the U.S. stage. Jimi had been tearing it up in England, and he ended by setting his guitar on fire, which turned out to be a defining moment in music history. Criterion brings this event and others back to life in a comprehensive 3 disc set which is designed not only to showcase Jimi’s set during the show, but also breathes new life into the festival in general.
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Disneymania In Concert

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 5th, 2005

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Synopsis

What we have here is really Disney’s Mouseketeers for the new millennium. Raven, JesseMcCartney, Ashani and the like peform their version of “Colors of the Wind,” “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” and the like before a screaming studio audience at the California Disneyland Resort. Little“behind-the-scenes” segments are interspersed between the performances. The whole thing isextremely plastic, the songs are utterly bland and obviously lip-synched, and the result is reallynothing more tha…
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Depeche Mode / Devotional

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 10th, 2004

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I’ve got to be honest. I was never a Depeche Mode fan. My lack of interest in them didn’t really come from their music, which I always thought was different – in a good way. It was just that in the 80’s and 90’s, MTV played their videos 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The video for “Enjoy the Silence” was burned into my eyelids. I couldn’t get away from the band no matter how hard I tried.

My, how things have changed. MTV doesn’t play Depeche Mode videos anymore, or any videos for that matter, and after wat…
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O Genio: Ray Charles Live in Brazil 1963

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 6th, 2004

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With the popularity of the bio-pic Ray, Rhino comes out with O Genio: Ray Charles Live in Brazil 1963. Ray Charles is truly an O Genio, and this disc confirms that. Jazz, gospel, blues, rock n’ roll, this guy did it all. We have two performances recorded live in Sao Paulo. Each performance runs about an hour long. Ray is accompanied by a full brass orchestra and a lovely collection of female back-up singers. The first show gets off to kick-butt start with Charles’s famous hit “What’d I Say”. The …
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Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band – Tour 2003

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 12th, 2004

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What is Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band – Tour 2003? Well…The Last Waltz this ain’t. Ringo has been touring with his All-Starr’s since the 1990’s. And the 2003 version includes “stars” such as Colin Hay from Men at Work, Paul Carrack from Mike and Mechanics, John Waite and Sheila E. I suppose we’re in time warp because these are 80’s stars.

The DVD was shot on Digital Video and goes back and forth between live concert footage, “behind the scene” stuff, and interviews (mostly about the “s…
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Everything But The Girl – Like the Deserts Miss the Rain

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 11th, 2004

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Everything But The Girl is a group that has always been a bit of an enigma to me. I have never heard any of their albums, but I consistently run into one of their songs on the odd movie soundtrack or occasional visit to the record store. I am always struck by how different one song sounds from the next, much like the brilliant work of Blur, and I assumed that this was because most of the songs that I have heard are B-sides, or as I stated before, tracks that were donated to compilations or soundtracks. This disc has …
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Jewel – Live at Humphrey

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 3rd, 2004

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In today’s age of manufactured talent less pop stars you have to hand it to the artists that still write and actually perform their own original material. Versus the one’s who simply head into the studio with a team of writers and producers and who don’t even have the talent to actually sign live but instead just lip sync. Jewel whether you like her music or not is an artist, she writes her own material and even co-produced her last album. At times she is incredibly engaging at other times slightly annoying but, her …
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Carly Simon – Live from Martha’s Vineyard: The Classic Concert

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 10th, 2004

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I hate Carly Simon. However, I feel that as I am supposed to be an impartial reviewer, so I should get that out of the way right here at the start. I have never liked her, though I am not really sure why. Maybe it is her freakishly large mouth. Maybe it’s that fact that “You’re So Vain” really is about the person who thinks it’s about them. Whatever the reason, I just can’t help it. She makes me cringe.

The good news is, now that I have viewed this disc, I have plenty of valid reasons to hate her. Ob…
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String Cheese Incident – Live at the Fillmore

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 3rd, 2004

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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…
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Pat Metheny Group – Speaking of Now Live

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 16th, 2003

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The Pat Metheny Group is one of those bands that I have heard of, but that’s about all. I seem to recall the name, but I couldn’t tell you what kind of music they play, or if they are any good. They seem to fall into the “miscellaneous information” bin of my brain.

After viewing this DVD, at least one of those questions has been answered. While I still have a problem defining their style of music (progressive/new age/jazz?), their level of musicianship cannot be denied. These are wonderfully talented musici…
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