Customer Reviews

Going to California

5 star:		(3)
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While Tears for Fears was obviously a huge hit in the 1980's, they saved their best work for the last year of the decade. After a long hiatus, they came back with the one of the best CD's ever released: Seeds of Love. This VCD recording is of that tour. Unfortunately, they played very few venues on that tour and most of the US missed them at their musical best.

Recorded live in Santa Monica California, the band also featured Oleta Adams playing live with them after getting her start with "Woman in Chains" the hit off the Seeds of Love CD. Oleta gives the band much more musical range and soul to compliment the often pop techno sound of "Shout", "Change", and "Mad World".
In fact it is one of Oleta's solo hits "I've Got To Sing My Song" that gets the best crowd reaction.

What makes this such a wonderful live recording are the bits and pieces of other songs woven in. For example, after the final fade out lyrics of "Famous Last Words" the band flows into the old time Gospel classic "When the Saints Go Marching In"! This live recording is worth it for that alone. Topping off the Beatle's inspired hit "Sowing the Seeds of Love" is a rendition of the Beatle's "All You Need is Love".

Other favorites live are "Badman's Song" featuring some great solo guitar work and jazz piano, and the rocker "Year of the Knife". Of course all the hits are here and closing with "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and "Shout" featuring an extended version, and a rap version of "Sowing the Seeds of Love", is always a crowd favorite.

It's too bad more people did not get to experience this tour, and see this great band performing at their musical best. This is a great chance to do that, so I strongly recommend this VCD set, and hopefully the band will someday release this on DVD for the better sound quality. The only downside of this VCD release is that it is essentially the VHS version on a format you can play in your DVD player. It does however lack the pristine quality of most DVD releases, but is 5 stars nonetheless.

Receiving this VcD was a very, very plesant surprise ! The Amazon reference is a bit ambiguous, since it indicates this purchase to be an 'audio CD', while by plesant surprise, my DVD-player appears to play Vcd with video !

It is very much of a pity that Tears for Fears never really got a big following in Holland, even though their music is maybe too sophisticated to be just 'pop music', their music is nevertheless a fine fusion of pop, jazz and melodic rock and at moments bombastic. They were my favourites back in the early-80's and played the songs from the big chair everyday, just before i took off upstairs to do my homework.

The vcd starts off with a surprise: Oleta Adams playing and singing I Believe, after which they all come on stage to take off with my favourite: Head over Heels. It is a dream come true, to finally have a live version of that song !

Absolute tops for me on this vcd are woman in chains, and BadMan's song. These versions are quite accurate to the studio version, and expressed with such a finesse, control and skill. The Famous last words/when the saints shows Roland Orzabal as a top musician, with in my opinion probably one of the finest voices in pop today. I love his voice with his tone, control and versatility. Then when you see him along with the background singers while Oleta is singing her 'I've got to sing this song', it shows how professional he actually is as a musician.

And finally, the encore is the obligatory Shout, which is also a very favourite of mine. Obligatory or not, they play it with fun and strength, then one of the background singers ends the song with a tough rap doing the lyric of 'seeds of love', and they finally end with a fun jam.

This is a vcd to play over and over again, and must be in the posession of each TFF fan !

In their 80's heyday Tears for Fears only toured the US three times and a lot of us who wore out our copies of 'Songs From the Big Chair' never got to see them live. That's what makes this VCD(which will play in most DVD players)such a find-I had no idea what a powerful live band this was! Taped during the 'Sowing the Seeds of Love' tour in 1989, lead singer/guitarist Roland Orzobal is in prime form, the band is tight and the energy level is off the charts. The addition of gospel singer/pianist Oleta Adams to TFF before the 'Sowing the Seeds' album changed the band's direction and her powerful voice and superb playing are featured on a number of cuts, particularly on a solo version of 'I Believe' that opens the show. It's ironic that the addition of Adams and the change in musical direction that followed would result in the band's demise. Bassist/singer Curt Smith(who co-authored the band's biggest hits with Orzobal)sings his TFF classics like 'Change' and 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World' but isn't really a big part of this show. Smith was to leave the band after this tour and Tears for Fears were never the same again. However, the ongoing strain between TFF co-founders Orzobal and Smith certainly wasn't evident onstage as the music's outstanding and everyone seems to be having a blast. The video quality is respectable considering it's VCD and while there's no Dolby 5.1 the sound is well mixed and listenable. All in all, a real gem from the vaults for TFF fans.