Customer Reviews

Hope Bleeds

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

PAL REGION O. AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON UK FROM 6 POUNDS.

Yes,enter Gazza with his first official DVD release,Manchester Academy 03,live !!!! This is one hell of a concert,20 songs,106' + 82 'of juicy interviews with Numan and ALL of his musicians,and a soundcheck to boot.Superbly shot and edited,this is a DVD of extremes;from almost total darkness or the faintest of coulored lights to the eye-hurting,stage-flooding bath of incandescent white light and strobe effects.To the quietest of murmurs to the ear-shattering electric crescendo,the sound is almost perfect in the tonal and dynamics departments,except that some songs could have benefited from a meatier midrange.The bottom end,on the other hand,is almost too much for any system lacking a subwoofer,and it almost split mine in half !!!! The highlight is undoubtetly the mid-show song BLEED,with 2 screeching metal guitars loud in the mix unleashing mayhem ! .Not all are roses,though.This DVD exhibits a minor but annoying flaw: at some times,especially during the brightest parts,the picture presents horizontal comb-like lines like interference of some kind,only they're actually recorded on the DVD (I thought my sytem could be picking up some radio interference,but no).This is one star less in my book,only we're talking GARY NUMAN here,and that more than compensates for it .A VISUAL AND SONIC FEAST,though maybe only for the initiated.

I'm not a concert-goer, and I rarely buy any live recordings, let alone DVD's, but I had read in an interview with Numan stating that he thought this concert was one of his best, so I thought if I were to start buying any Numan concert recordings, I may as well start with this one.

First of all, the setlist is great: you get more recent material, many tracks from Pure, the two new tracks from Hybrid, a few older tracks, and it even includes a performance of 'Jagged' from his yet to be released (at the time) album of the same name.

While I was a little disappointed in the somewhat heavy use of pre-recorded material (you hear a lot of keyboard/synth samples like this, along with some vocals) which make some songs feel more like you're listening to the studio versions, but with a whole bunch of people (Down in the park and Metal are both the '98 versions, which you can easily tell from the pre-recorded material). Other songs do go onto another level, however, with some insteresting new instrumentation and deliverence.

The concert is a great length, and the DVD includes a few added treats on the side.

I agree with the other, very enthusiastic, reviewer, that this DVD does display some weird issues. I think perhaps that because this DVD was manufactured in the UK that there may be something wrong in the translation(?; I don't know much about electronics, so this is just a guess). And aside from annoying flashes of light as described by other reviewer, I kept having to pause the DVD because the image and sound tracks kept going out of sync.

But other than that, I really enjoyed this concert, and will likely watch it a number of times; it's also opened me to wanting to see more live performances of Gary Numan.