9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Could Be Better, November 19, 2002
By A Customer
I bought this DVD with high hopes for the Live WASP that I had always wanted to see. I saw them on the Headless Children tour and was pretty impressed. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed with this DVD. It is a good DVD - and a must for WASP fans - but it does have it's problems.
For starters, the vocals are highly suspect in this DVD. Many times you can hear 3 singers but you only see 2. The drummer has a headset on, but you rarely see him singing. The only time he was noticeably singing was during "I Wanna Be Somebody" but then there was only one voice on the soundtrack and that was Blackie. Also Blackie forgets to sing the first chorus in "Sleeping In The Fire." Overall, the vocals are inconsistent. Some songs sound perfect - other songs do not. Also the recorded quality of the voice is different in several songs. I can only think they did vocal overdubs in the studio after the fact.
The other thing that bugged me is that some cameras are sharply in focus wile others are fuzzy. And, I got a little tired of the "gonzo" angle from the ground up. Once or twice would have been cool but not throughout the whole video.
I was also amazed that WASP would release this product with the timing errors at the beginning "Sleeping In The Fire" and "The Real Me." In fact, at the beginning of "The Real Me", I thought my DVD had skipped. Not so...just a bad edit.
Also, sadly, this crowd wasn't into the band at all. The crowd was so quiet on the DVD that when the band stopped playing it sounded like about 10 people in the audience. Most of them just stared at the stage as if they had never seen or heard of the band.
Okay...I know I am ragging on them a lot, but one last complaint..song selection. I would have much rather heard another WASP tune than "The Real Me." How about "High On the Flames"? How about "Headless Children."? How about the "Heretic"? And I don't really care for "Dirty Balls" and "Damnation Angels." I thought Helldorado had better tunes than those.
Overall I give this DVD a rating of 3. Mostly because Blackie is so outrageous and outspoken - I was expecting a superior quality DVD and only got good. In my book they didn't deliver the goods. Sorry Blackie! But as I said if you are a WASP fan, you will probably enjoy this DVD.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Blackies thoughts and mine, June 12, 2003
This DVD contains a basic offering of hits and a few miscellaneous songs from the band. Because it is a collection of more popular songs, it does not necessarily give a full insight into what WASP is capable of. The performance itself is not all that bad and they pour themselves into it. The show fairly rocks (3 and a half stars), but contains nothing from more intelligent WASP projects (and lyrics) such as Crimson Idol, and Dying For The World.
Some of the criticism in previous reviews are worth noting, but are not all necessarily the fault of WASP themselves. The way the DVD is put together is a different story. I once had an opportunity to interview WASP singer Blackie Lawless after this DVD came out (I used to work with an online music magazine), and among what turned into a long and very interesting interview I asked him about this DVD. He said that this DVD was part of a deal involving a company that WASP was no longer involved with, and that WASP had no creative control over the DVD at the time. He would not say much else because the company behind the project made it clear that if WASP said anything derogatory about them they would sue. He said he had never seen the DVD and that we could just fill in the blanks regarding what he thought.
Seems to me that WASP fans will love it a lot, but according to Blackie, WASP plans on doing something more proper in the future.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth Buying!, May 12, 2002
Wow, finally a live WASP show on DVD that isn't a bootleg. Sound quality is excellent. Camera angles are very good. My only complaint was that they never miked the crowd noise. Listen to the cd of this same show and you'll see what I mean, lots of dead gaps. Would love to see more WASP live shows on DVD. BUY THIS!
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