Cheap Peter Gabriel - Secret World Live (DVD) (François Girard) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Peter Gabriel - Secret World Live

ALRIGHT, HERES THE REAL SCOOP ON THIS DVD...
While the overall remastering of the sound is good (could use more bass though), it's the reMIXING i'm a little ify about. Some of it is good, but a lot of it ISN'T. Long time fans of the film and accompanying CD will notice several things in the performance that weren't there before. Extra vocal ad libs (one of which during "Shaking the Tree" when it can clearly be seen that Gabriel's lips aren't moving, and another at the tail end of "Secret World" where his voice suddenly sounds a whole octave lower - strange. Over-sight? Laziness?)
For the most part, these changes don't intrude too much (kinda nice actually to hear a different mix since i'm so used to the regular one), but there are times when it just should have been left the way it was. In particular, "Solsbury Hill", which has always been my favourate part of the film. Different/more vocal ad libs, and the end of the song has been totally rearranged. After the last chorus, it goes right to the "hey hey hey..." bit, and THEN the keyboard lick comes in. For me, it's really quite annoying, but for others it may not be.

EXTRA FEATURES:
The features i was thouroughly happy with (i was thrilled to know there were going to any "extras" at all). The "timelapse" feature was neat, showing the equiptment being rolled in and setup, the lighting and sound checks, people filing in, the concert in it's entirety, people leaving, and then finally packing everything away for the next show... all in ultra fast motion (it takes a little over a minute). Theres a couple of nice little "behind the scenes" documentarys to, one for "Secret World", and one for his more recent "Growing Up" tour. Both are informative and show some cool offstage footage. Worth seeing. Also included is a remix of "Quiet Steam" (the song itself is not a remix of "Steam", but a total re-recording), over which a montage of photos from the tour are shown. The photos aren't very interesting, but the remix of "Steam" is quite cool.
_______________

All in all, it's WORTH GETTING, even if you already have the VHS, or laserdisc. If your a huge fan, like myself, i'm sure your gonna get this anyway (you know you are), so whats the point of the review, but i hope this has been informative for those unsure of what they're getting into.
LONG LIVE PETER GABRIEL!!

---

Pitfalls of the DVD transfer didn't ruin the concert for me.
I was first introduced to Peter Gabriel's live shows on his 2002/2003 "Growing Up" tour, being too young to have caught him on his previous tours 10 years earlier. His concerts are fantastic, combining art, music, and theatrics (and often acrobatics). "Secret World Live" was his 1994 concert in support of his "Us" album, and is one of the finest concert films ever released. The DVD release is great, save for some technical problems.

The highlight of the concert were "Come Talk To Me", which has Gabriel emerging from a phone booth and he inches towards backing vocalist Paula Cole, "Solsbury Hill" (a classic!), and "Shaking The Tree". Most, if not all, of the songs are book-ended by African vocals and tribal beats. It is beautiful how they meshed together the songs. With strong musicians (his longtime bassist Tony Levin especially) and backing vocals from Paula Cole (who has had some fleeting success in the mid-90s as a solo artist) and Shankar on violin and vocals makes the sound well rounded and pleasing to the ears. Gabriel himself is always an energetic and spirited presence, dressed like Han Solo and doing his odd dances and mimes throughout the show.

While the concert is fantastic, the DVD release has a few problems with the picture and sound. The picture is grainy at times, which would be most noticeable to people with big screen, plasma, or projection television sets. While the DVD boasts "Re-Mixed and Re-Mastered", but it appears that the source material was a bit frayed. The picture is not horrible, but it could be much better, considering the capabilities of the DVD format. The sound is mostly well mastered, but there are times when the backing vocals are muted, making them almost indistinct. The bass also fades out on occasion, but this is less noticeable and therefore less of an inconvenience. These are not serious problems that would prevent me from recommending the DVD, but DVD purists would definitely find things to complaint about.

The supplements are nothing spectacular. There is an insubstantial "Making Of" featurette, which is good for a one-off viewing. There is also a nice promo for Gabriel's ":Growing Up" tour, where he goes into detail about the setup of his new concerts, including the giant hamster bubble that anyone who has seen his recent concerts loves. My favorite supplement, though I don't know why, is the time-lapse of a concert in Berlin, Germany. Over the course if a minute, we see the stages being set up in an empty arena, the full concert, and everything being dismantled, packed up, and shipped out. It is a lot of fun.

"Secret World Live" is a fantastic concert film that cannot be ruined, even by a sub-standard video transfer and iffy sound quality. It contains some of his best music during one of his best concerts. Highly recommended.

---

Waited years for this concert on DVD, slightly disappointed
After owning the VHS tape and putting up with muddy sound and slightly grainy video but still very much enjoying the concert I kept sending emails to the Peter Gabriel website asking when a DVD version would be coming out and finally it did.

Having read the other reviews I would have to disagree with the negative reviews on the video side, on my system the video is quite crisp with solid colors and I see no Macrovision artifacts.

However, the sound mix is extremely disappointing to me. Although the clarity and crispness are what I have come to expect from DVD multichannel digital mixes WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LFE (Bass) Channel ?!!!???!! Sometimes there are slight bass differences between Dolby Digital versus DTS but in this case both mixes have serious issues with the LFE track, its almost non-existent. I have directly compared several songs from the VHS to the DVD side by side and although not as clean or distortion-free, the VHS mix has a much stronger bass line. One of the prior reviews mentioned Tony Levin should turn his bass up, well he did have his bass turned up and listening to the DVD my subwoofer is barely breathing compared to the VHS mix. As a huge Tony Levin fan from his King Crimson days to his solo appearances and sit ins with the California Guitar Trio the clarity and power of the bass signal was one of the items I was most looking forward to from the DVD. I do not have a spectrum frequency analyzer but to my ears there is very little content below 60hz.

I also have to agree with a slight time alignment issue with the vocals and the picture, apparently my receiver (Onkyo Integra DTR 9.1) has some compensation for that so I will have to try that out but overall I was so upset about the lack of bass it is hard to listen/watch the DVD much anymore.