Enigma869 wrote:Ehwmatt wrote:Sorry, the DVD is underwhelming. Diction issues suck and the audio and video work leave MUCH to be desired. Great setlist though. I'm about to pop it in again... only gonna revisit a few cuts though tonight. I want to give Turn Down The World Tonight another chance, as it's one of my faves but I thought it just had too much "space" in it live to really come off well, especially in the verses. Somehow Friga's piano and Neal's volume swells/single note leads fill a lot more space on the album.
I'm agreeing with you WAY too much lately

The setlist is undeniably SUPERB! That said, the production quality of this DVD is horrendous, in my opinion. The camera angles have zero flow to them and it is RIDICULOUSLY dark! I'm not going to pick on Arnel about his diction issues but I do agree with you that they are VERY noticeable! Again, it's only $10.00 so I don't regret buying it. I'm just stunned that the quality of the production is as poor as it is. It's basically the DVD version of "Generations" in the production department, and considering it sounds as if "Generations" was recorded in Neal's cement basement, that is definitely not a compliment! I'm actually very surprised that so many people are praising how good this DVD is. As DVD concerts go (and it's pretty much the only type of DVD's I ever purchase), it's quite mediocre!
I'm giving Disc 2 another whirl right now and one thing I've noticed that bugs me more about Arnel's diction issues aside from the accent is the way he extends his lines over what was originally a beautiful call and response type thing between SP and Neal. For example, all throughout Faithfully when Neal is supposed to "respond" to the verses, Arnel is still draggin the note/word out for way too long. Now, some might call that a phrasing issue, and with another singer, I might agree... but I firmly believe this is part of Arnel's language problem. It really ruins the flow of Faithfully for me on here.
And there is some DEFINITE strain creeping in to that high register... very noticeable on the beginning of DSB and throughout Escape, especially the part where he has to go way high up for the "I'm on my WAYYYYYYYYY-YyyyY-YYY" - he strains terribly on all of them.
I still think DSB is laughably bad on here.. the "adlib" outro is so godawful Neal and Friga oughta be flushing 20 shades of red on there.
But the production problem is really the deal breaker for me. The mix is flat as hell. My live records/DVDs should have some OOMPH to them. This honestly just sounds like I'm listening to a decent mixed studio CD on mid-low volume on say... a car stereo. Not a nice 5.1 system like I've got. I tried the stereo mix, not much better... let's face it, they dropped the ball. It's nowhere near the shit quality of Generations speaking on a 1:1 comparison, but in the Journey world, DVD to CD, that's a pretty good analogy I'd say. I own well over 250 music DVDs, so I know what a good one sounds and looks like. This ain't one of 'em.