Customer Reviews

Joe Jackson - 25th Anniversary Special

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

 

 

In one of the bonus features of this DVD, Joe Jackson reads the first chapter of his book, "A Cure For Gravity." He tells the audience not to worry, assuring them that the reading will be followed by the full two hour concert. Unfortunately, this DVD only contains thirteen songs, barely lasting one hour. Those attending the concert got their money's worth, while those of us who bought this DVD did not. The other bonus feature of this DVD is a Joe Jackson interview. All that he said should have been confined to that segment. Instead, almost every song in the show is interrupted near the end by a snippet of Joe Jackson talking. This interrupts the flow of the concert, not to mention having to listen to him talk while the song is still going on. In addition, the song "Glamour And Pain" is sung by the female violinist in his band. While she has a pleasant enough singing voice, I would have preferred hearing another song sung by Joe. Given the fact that several songs performed in the concert were left off the DVD, the decision to include that particular song is even more puzzling. A good quality bootleg tape of the entire show would be more enjoyable to watch than this heavily edited DVD concert.

This is just an awful DVD. For starters, the sound quality is inexcusable and represents absolutely no production care or effort whatsoever - think bootleg quality (one fave part of mine takes place in the second verse of Real Man when Jackson is playing the piano and you hear all band and absolutely no piano, none). If that weren't enough, the video quality is inconsistent and poor. Finally, the content is so limited that in the end you're sure that you've ended up with the salvaged parts of a failed production effort; one which should have been scrapped.

I saw this tour in San Francisco and thought it was mediocre to begin with. I was prejudiced though: One year prior I saw Jackson at the Bottom Line in New York where he played only with Burke and Maby, parked his butt behind a piano, and gave one of the best live performances I've ever seen (that mini-tour is captured on the Summer In The City:Live In New York CD).

A concert on DVD can be nothing short of spectacular: James Taylor's Live From the Beacon, Dave Matthews Band's Listener Supported, and many others take full advantage of this incredible medium to use unprecedented sound and video quality to create a truly unique experience for the viewer. Why then are there so many horrible concert DVDs? Because some concert DVDs are about a process dedicated to capturing the live experience and therefore consider elements such as appropriate equipment, great sound production, video production, lighting, direction, editing, mastering, and other things which cost money. Other DVDs are just about getting the artist onto a DVD as cheaply as possible to make some quick cash. Nobody is asking for producers to break out Scorcese and crank out another Last Waltz, but if anyone thinks consumers aren't going to see through the process of showing up midtour and filming a few nights of a band's performance without further forethought or preparation, well then, they're just wrong.

(...)

I'am a big Joe Jackson fan, and I saw him on tour 6 times. This DVD is good, because it contains an interesting interview with JJ, because it has a section with The Man himself reading a chapter of his book "A cure for gravity", and because the "Nigh and day II" songs are well played.

Unfortunately, on the musical side, this DVD contains only part of a show and not all the songs are equally well arranged. The musicians are really good, (expecially the delightful Allison Cornell, which is a talented artist), but there are songs that heavily suffer from the lack of a guitar in the group (expecially "You can't get what you want"). The "night and day II" songs are well played (astounding the vocals from Allison on "Glamour and pain") but the other (few) songs are not arranged in their best form.

I think that, given the huge JJ production along the years, this DVD has too much missing material.

Besides that, the continuous sound of percussions (not a Sue Adjoupulous fault, obviously) gives each song a very similar flavour (even where it isn't fitting, like on "Real men"), and this is a little annoyng.

I am glad to hear that JJ is now on the road with a drum/bass/guitar/piano line-up.

So .. if you already know Joe Jackson this DVD is for you, but if you are new to the man try the "Live in Tokyo" tour(VHS or DVD) or the "Laughter and lust" tour (VHS), instead of this.

[Living in Europe I have a complaint to do: why the DVD "Live in Tokyo" from the "Big world" tour is not out coded for region 2, too?]

Three things:

First, this is a re-release of an earlier DVD.

Second, the title is a deeply weird choice, given that this is taken from two concerts in Seattle and Portland from mid-2001 (two years before the 25th anniversary date trumpeted in the title).

Third, the person bitching about Allison Cornell's performance on "Glamour and Pain" is out of his/her mind! Her performance is one of the high points of the show (and almost makes up for the songs being constantly interrupted).

Okay, four things: anybody who liked the performances in the show(s) should look for the CD Two Rainy Nights, which features the same two shows.

All in all, an okay DVD for the money (although I'd rather have an expanded version of The Big World Sessions; my LaserDisc is far too short).

I just finished watching this dvd and I have to say it was one of the best live concert dvds I have seen. Yes, I am a joe jackson fan and this dvd did not dissappoint. It contains a live concert performance (filmed in 2001 and 2002) featuring Joe performing all his greatest hits plus some of his new music.

I definitely recommend this to anyone that likes his music. It is a great way to watch one of the greatest live performers in rock and roll. The sound quality was very good on my surround sound system...and it felt like i was sitting right in the front row of the small club where it was filmed. The video is also clearly directed or supervised by Joe since it is an artsy, cool, style of video.

Finally, one of the best bonuses of the dvd was that it came with a special chapter where Joe is filmed on stage while he is reading excerpts from his book.

So, to summarize, this is an all new concert featuring Joe at his best.

I attended one of the shows on this tour and for the life of me can't understand why neither the DVD nor the concert CD (Two Rainy Nights) contain two of the show's best performances: Chinatown and Stay/Steppin' Out. "Chinatown" featured thunderous percussion unlike anything heard before - it was the best arrangement I'd heard of this underrated song in Joe's catalog. "Stay", the final song from Night & Day II was beautifully performed and, midway through the song, hypnotically segued into "Steppin' Out". Not only was this unexpected, but the performance closely resembled the original studio version, which typically wasn't how the song was performed over the past 15+ years in concert. On top of it all, when the segue to Steppin' Out occurred, Joe was seated at a keyboard centered above the rest of the band with a suddenly darkened stage and green lights beaming out from the pedals of his keyboard - it literally appeared he was riding a mini-spaceship taking us back to 1982 - an indelible concert image. Once Steppin' Out was nearly completed, a seamless return to "Stay" capped off the performance, which ended the regular set of the show. Its a shame neither were released - of the many Joe Jackson performances I've seen, these songs were some of the very best.

Joe Jackson is awesome! Always has been; always will be! This video (DVD) is great and shows some different sides of Joe Jackson reflected through his music. Some of the songs are standard classics that everyone knows/remembers and others are obscure, but great. If you're a Joe Jackson fan, then you should own this DVD.

I believe the artistic way the DVD was filmed and the cut to interviews gave us an understanding of Joe and his brillance as an musical artist. Great show!!! I loved it.

First of all, this should not be compared to "The Wall" or landmark works from the Talking Heads or Laurie Anderson. The simple truth is, while there are plenty of live Joe Jackson recordings, you just don't have a lot options to SEE Joe Jackson perform his craft live. And if you understand what motives Joe to perform, his live works are guaranteed to be a treat to his fans.This work blends the classic Joe Jackson sound of piano, bass guitar, percussion and strings on his the best works from his Night& Day II album and a blend of past favorites, with insight directly from Joe that shows a real passionate and human side to an artist that is not easy to get to know. Buy it and enjoy it.

Frankly I'm not sure what some of these reviewers are on about... I'm only glad I didn't let them deter me from buying this dvd.