... except that I hadn’t and could have gladly slept in until Midday
at least. But I knew I had to make it up
to her for being away over the weekend so don’t complain. After breakfast and a quick scan of the match
reports about the Bulldogs 70 point loss to West Coast in Perth last night, I commit
to her suggestion of a long walk.
If you’ve never tried it, I recommend taking a long walk on
a Monday morning after everyone around you has gone to work. It’s quite a surreal feeling when the only
people you come aacross are just those older than you or yummy mummies talking
their children to school or kindergarten.
Otherwise, streets are quiet (except for the shopping strip), houses
vacant (except for tradesmen) and even the now empty commuter trains appear to
make no noise. We stop off at a café for
coffee and feel quite decadent.
After that “M” and I decide to watch a DVD at home. I go through some recent purchases we’ve yet
to see and select the Mark Whalberg political thriller The Shooter. Like most movies of this type, it has a preposterous
storyline, but contains enough internal movie logic to enable to suspension of
disbelief necessary for it to be quite entertaining. After this “M” dozes off and I decide to
check out some music DVDs.
Almost there are some great music documentaries out there,
the great bulk of my reasonably small music DVD collection is of live performances. I’ve started to collect these as it has
dawned on me that these have effectively replaced the live album. Think about it; when was the last time a
major act released a live album that was not part of a package containing a
live DVD of the same performance. (My
comments here obviously exclude live CDs released by acts more or less as historical
artefacts from much earlier in the careers and for which footage does not exist
such as The Who’s Live In Hull recorded the day after their seminal Live In
Leeds.) It’s reasonably hard to think of
one, but there’s an incredible number of live DVDs now on the market. Some acts, among them Metallica, Bruce
Springsteen, U2, The Rolling Stones and many, many, more, now routinely release
live DVDs after each of their tours. It
seems this is done as a necessary action to counteract the massive flood of gig
footage available on YouTube, to
provide punters with a quality souvenir of a typical show from the tour, to document significant
shows in the act’s history, and to maintain the product flow in the gaps between
albums. It might even be viewed as a
means to recoup some of the losses from sales of studio albums, etc resulting
from illegal downloads.
I managed to watch two DVD’s this afternoon, starting with a
souvenir from a reunion tour;
(Audio visual # 5)
Jane’s Addiction – Love Voodoo (2010)
Jane’s Addiction originally broke up in 1991, not that long
after completing their first Australian tour.
Indeed I’m reasonably sure the Melbourne gig I saw at what was then
called The Metro was their third last gig.
There were reformations subsequent to that for live shows and the Strays
CD but these versions of the band did not include original bass player Eric
Avery. This DVD, is from a period when
Avery did re-join, this performance taking place in New Orleans during 2009. The disc captures a solid performance by the
band playing tracks exclusively from the pre Strays era. Some props and dancers provide reminders of
past live hi jinx and everyone appears to be in great shape and sound but the
whole thing appears too ordered. At
their prime, there was an element of danger implicit in their performance - you’d think that something untoward was going
to happen such as an onstage fight or nudity – but nothing really seems to be
inferred or indeed happen. Part of this
may be due to the way the show appears on screen. All shots appear to have been taken by
cameras that are off stage and unseen; I don’t recall seeing anything that was
shot on stage. Additionally, the
coloured lights seem to settle over the screen on a great number of occasions
making the vision look like it’s been filmed on second hand video tape.
(Audio visual # 6)
Primal Scream – Screamadelica live (2011)
This is a live DVD of a significant event – the band’s first
performance of their classic Screamadelica album in full along with a set of catalogue
highlights played beforehand. It
captures a lavish recreation of the album incorporating a number of horns, back
up signers and a full gospel choir to great effect. Movin’ On Up and the closing trio of High
Than The Sun, Loaded and Come Together benefit greatly from this. The non Screamadelica numbers don’t come off
as well especially the revised arrangements given to Swastika Eyes and
Rocks. Shoot Speed/Kill Light is massive
though. The DVD has been brilliantly directed to give views a magnificent sense
of the electronically animated back projections that were generated for the
tracks. Unfortunately, the two sets are separated
on the disc and cannot be viewed as one program.
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