IQ - The Twentieth Anniversary Show 2DVD

IQ - The Twentieth Anniversary Show (The Mean Fiddler,London) 2DVD9
Год выпуска: 2004
Жанр: Neo-Prog
Продолжительность: 230 минут
Releases information: GER-SPV 563 -40677 2DVD 2004 GEP Ltd., released in 2004

Musicians

- Peter Nicholls / vocals
- Martin Orford / keyboards backing vocals
- Michael Holmes / guitars keyboards
- John Jowitt / bass backing vocals
- Paul Cook / drums, percussion
Special guests:
- Tim Esau / bass
- Tony Wright / saxophones

Set List

Disc 1 (the show)
1. Awake And Nervous
2. The Thousand Days/The Magic Roundabout
3. Erosion
4. State Of Mine/ Leap Of Faith/Came Down
5. The Seventh House
6. The Narrow Margin (middle section)
7. Human Nature
8. Capricorn
9. Just Changing Hands
10. Guiding Light
11. Headlong
12. The Last Human Gateway
Disc 2 (special features)
Encores:
1. Subterranea
2. Jet
3. Crazy Horses
4. The Wake
5. Mamma Mia/Out of Nowhere
The Lens:
1. Sleep Until You Wake
2. Choosing A Farmer (Pt 1)
3. Of Tide And Change
Intro and Outro films:
- Access All Areas (tour diary)
- Cookie Cam (hot drummer action!)
- Stage Set-up (time-lapse)
- Photo Gallery

Доп. информация

:
The sound is absolutely brilliant and available in Stereo and 5.1 Surround. As far as the visual aspect of the concert film is concerned, don't expect the same level of professionalism as with Forever Live or the Subterranea film. The film was made with some steady placed camera's and a couple of handheld cams. Fortunately, at times we get a much better view of the individual band members than on the aforementioned concert films, and it's good fun to see Andy Mr Ploppy Labrow, shambling around in the crowd and on stage to capture some fine footage from unexpected angles.
Also, the available material and different camera angles are edited into a diverse film using overlay, close-up and split image effects from time to time. Especially the editing makes the film hard to tell from any production by a professional crew. There's even a camera placed somewhere near drummer Paul Cook's left foot (the 'Cookie Cam') capturing fine footage of his pounding and stomping (although perhaps a bit grainy at times).
One thing I found a bit disappointing was the way the projections were captured. There's two main reasons for this. First of all I realised how far the whole projection stuff has evolved in the last three shows. Compared to for instance the Dark Matter tour this almost seems like kid's play. Also, The Mean Fiddler is not the best venue to film a big multimedia production. There's not a lot of room between the stage and lighting. As a result the projection screen had to be placed behind the band, resulting in less visibility and images being projected on the band members.
Another thing which could have been done better is the choice of camera angles during certain parts of the songs. Especially when a keyboard or guitar solo takes place the angles used are often not showing Mike Holmes or Martin Orford.
Something that definitely needs to be mentioned is the fact that this concerned, with the exception of Peter Nicholls painting his face again for the occasion, this is much more a representative IQ that the Forever Live and Subterranea concert films. In those two movies the humour and fooling around on stage was completely absent. On this IQ20 DVD there's hardly a minute in which nothing funny happens. Whether it is a sexual pun by Mr. Nicholls, some adrenaline induced action by Mr. Jowitt or mischief by Mr. Holmes, there's lots of it on this CD. But rest assured, all of this is not at the expense the quality of the music. Also worth mentioning are the guest performances of Tony Wright on Sax (although he does seem to linger about doing nothing a bit too much during these long songs) and IQ's former bass player Tim Esau on Headlong (and The Wake on DVD 2).
The second DVD is almost more fun than the main set on DVD1. First of all, we are treated to the rest of the performances on the night at the Mean Fiddler: the encores and the 'support act' by The Lens. The encores include an extended version of Subterranea (the one with the reggae bit and Ole! ending), two excellent covers in good Christmas gig tradition (The Wings' Jet and The Osmonds' Crazy Horses) before absolute chaos descends on the stage during The Wake. With Tim Esau playing bass John Jowitt is left jumping around the stage, dancing around wearing (my) Christmas hat and even pulling lighting engineer Lol on stage for some 'dancing' and guest vocals .... err ... make that grunting.
I'm also very happy that they included the performance by The Lens on the DVD. As a support act we see four crosses between Mexican bandito's and sixties hippies play three marvellous renditions from the band's instrumental A Word in Your Eye album. Hilarious fun combined with great musicianship.
But there's much more on DVD 2. There's a total of six short movies that were used over the past years as intros and outros to the band's gigs. At times enormously funny (check out the band member names and merchandise) or stunningly impressive. Access All Areas is a half an hour tour diary of the European IQ20 Tour, capturing sound checks and backstage footage, among which some attempts to have the full band composing a new tune by blowing on partially empty beer bottles (actually the band's favourite musical instruments !). Funny subtitles spice up this interesting look behind the scenes. Unfortunately the only thing which seems to be missing are interviews with band and crew about the IQ20 tour, or the rich 20 years of history of the band.
Next up is another rendition of State of Mine/Leap of Faith/Came Down as played on DVD 1, but now seen through the Cookie Cam. Quite interesting to see Cookie's drum skills for about 10 minutes, especially for drum aficionados.
Stage Set Up is a 2 minute time lapse of the the stage preparations during the afternoon, set to a speeded-up version of Corners. Interesting but a bit embarrassing when compared to e.g. Peter Gabriel's time lapse films. I did however spot a certain IQ fan and DPRP reviewer in this footage.
The Photo Gallery is more interesting than the average gallery you get on DVDs like these since it features pictures from the band's full history and is accompanied by a trance remix of Capricorn by Mike Holmes.
And last but certainly not least, there's the immensely popular encore of Abba's Mamma Mia combined with Out of Nowhere which was filmed during last May's European Dark Matter tour. All in all a lot of splendid bonus material more than worth the price of this full DVD set alone.
As I said before this DVD was well worth the wait, regardless of some of my minor gripes. A must have for every IQ fan or anybody who would like to sample a representative IQ gig or get to know the personality of the band and it's members a bit better. Thumbs up to Dene Wilby and Mike Holmes for the hard work on this item !

Качество: DVD9
Формат: DVD Video
Видео кодек: MPEG2
Аудио кодек: AC3
Видео: DVD1:PAL 4:3 (720x576) VBR, DVD2:PAL 4:3 (720x576) VBR
Аудио: DVD1: Not specified (Dolby AC3, 2 ch), DVD2: Not specified (LinearPCM, 2 ch)

DVD1 info

Title: IQ20 dvd1
Size: 6.58 Gb ( 6 896 764 KBytes ) - DVD-9
Enabled regions: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8
VTS_01 :
Play Length: 00:00:29
Video: PAL 4:3 (720x576) VBR
Audio:
Not specified (LinearPCM, 2 ch)
VTS_02 :
Play Length: 02:03:26
Video: PAL 4:3 (720x576) VBR
Audio:
Not specified (Dolby AC3, 2 ch)
Not specified (Dolby AC3, 6 ch)
VTS_03 :
Play Length: 00:00:15
Video: PAL 4:3 (720x576) VBR
Audio:
Not specified (LinearPCM, 2 ch)

Скриншоты DVD1 menu

Скриншоты DVD1

DVD2 info

Title: IQ20 dvd2
Size: 6.01 Gb ( 6 304 662 KBytes ) - DVD-9
Enabled regions: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8
VTS_01 :
Play Length: 00:24:42
Video: PAL 4:3 (720x576) VBR
Audio:
Not specified (Dolby AC3, 2 ch)
Not specified (Dolby AC3, 6 ch)
VTS_02 :
Play Length: 00:23:13
Video: PAL 4:3 (720x576) VBR
Audio:
Not specified (Dolby AC3, 2 ch)
Not specified (Dolby AC3, 6 ch)
VTS_03 :
Play Length: 00:30:42
Video: PAL 4:3 (720x576) VBR
Audio:
Not specified (LinearPCM, 2 ch)
VTS_04 :
Play Length: 00:09:56
Video: PAL 4:3 (720x576) VBR
Audio:
Not specified (LinearPCM, 2 ch)
VTS_05 :
Play Length: 00:02:03
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