Cheap The Residents - Demons Dance Alone (DVD) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Residents - Demons Dance Alone

I had purchased the album which contains the majority of the material presented here and in a strange way Ive grown to prefer these live versions of those songs as opposed to the studio versions on "Demons Dance Alone" the lp.

The back of the dvd tells the long intricate story of the troubles they had in trying to make a competent concert video of the show. They used night vision type cameras for a good deal of the performance which hads a flavor and a twist to the visuals. True it makes for a grainy picture but it does add to the atmopshere of the music.

The performances are inspired with audio al from a single shows performance but footage from several performance for the visuals. A complicated task that I think not a single music group could pull off for a concert video and frankly wouldnt attempt to pull off either.

They're three separte versions of Mr.Wonderful (Ms. Wonderful and Life Would Be Wonderful) which acts as a recurring theme for the album, and please look for the nod to Snakefinger with the spirited cover of his song off the "Greener Postures" album (a great album by the way, not Phillip "SnakeFinger" Lithan at his best but still a great album).

I have to recommend this as the top two of the dvds (with Kettles of Fish on the Ouskirts of Town box)they have out now and tops among all other concert videos that ive ever seen(actually I rank all the Residents dvds above other artists dvd offerings, but perhaps im too biased).

Loss: What Might Have Been
Demons Dance Alone is a superbly crafted mood piece that the DVD ultimately fails to chronicle. I saw the live show twice and was hoping the cinematic release would offer a more accurate representation from the audience's perspective. The interaction from the camera's perspective is distracting and frustrating. The minimal lighting used in the live show impeccably complimented the essence of the composition. Here, the quality of the video/editing is harsh and over-saturated, but improves as the DVD progresses. The performance is taken from multiple venues, which makes it seem a bit disjointed. The 5.1 sound is consistently good and makes up for a lot of the issues I had with the video quality. I've been anxiously awaiting this release since attending the shows. Perhaps my expectations got the better of me.

Frustrating but rewarding
This is no live concert dvd. If you missed the Demons Dance Alone Tour and are looking for a glimpse of what audiences got to see, you will not find it here. What the Residents have done is presented their live performance, but heavily edited the visual portion by making it grainy and seemingly haphazard. The whole dvd serves as a 70-something-minute-long music video; one that is full of artistic technique. Demons Dance Alone seems to have been an album with themes about loneliness, self-doubt, guilt, and...macaroni, all told through the "voices" of real people - kids, lonely women watching the weather, etc. I think that this dvd is meant to present the Residents themselves as more characters; their identities, which they have obviously obscured over the years, to say the least, seem to be a major focus. In the end, we realize it's all just a big show, but the grainy and peculiar (and much more) filming make one feel a closeness with humanity that permeates the whole DDA concept. A respectable addition to any collection, but not something to watch with your girlfriend (unless she's really really cool).