Lynyrd Skynyrd travelled back to their hometown of Jacksonville – Florida, where two nights in a row they performed in their entirety their first two albums ‘Pronounced ‘Léh-‘Nérd ‘Skin-‘Nérd’ and ‘Second Helping’. This concert was done at the historic Florida Theatre.
This DVD was filmed over those two days, and shows us a band in a very good form, performing in front of an enthousiastic crowd, hell, it’s hard to say who enjoyed these shows the best, the band, or the public.
This DVD brings us a recording of Aerosmith’s show at 2014’s Donnington festival. To be honest, I found it disappointing, and I’ll explain why.
Toto, a legendary American band, that has scored his first hit in 1979, with ‘Hold The Line’, a song that still is played on the radio channels, who scored again in the early eighties with hits like ‘Rosanna’ and ‘Africa’, and the list goes on. For me their best album of all times however still is, and probably will always be their fourth album, simply called ‘IV’.
Currently, Steve Morse is perhaps best known as the guitarist of supergroup Deep Purple, the ranks of which he joined in 1994 (with contributions to 5 studio and 11 live albums as a result to date), but the man's curriculum vitae is slightly longer than that, both in the past and in contemporary days!
This DVD was captured during the bands 2009 tour, and not only gives us some caption of their live shows, but also some behind the scenes moments of the band members, where you get to know more of the private interests of each member.
There are twelve songs in total on this disk, including some of their best tracks like ‘Caroline’, ‘Metal Will stand Tall’, ‘Echoes Of The Past’, ‘I Rule The Night’. If you’re into glam, and want to enjoy some quality time before your TV, this DVD should do the trick.
Missing on the CDs which you dó have on the DVD, are the inevitable short breaks in between the songs, and some of the cheering, I guess...enough to shorten the first 12 songs by about 5 minutes, and the next 13 by more than 10 minutes [I cannot believe there were actually that many “dead moments” in the show, but hey, make the count for yourself : the complete concerts lasted 2 hours and 6 minutes (not counting the extra time for allowing everyone involved in the show to come to the front center of stage to make a final bow for the audience) and the discs last 54: 11 and 55:04!].
As mentioned in the review of the double CD version of this event (for details also check there), it's always more gratifying to séé how musicians feed off each other during performance, and the DVD perfectly showcases the individual sparks that went across the stage during the performance! Things one would miss out on when just listening to the CD's, include the fact that Tony was playing on a 7-string guitar, the frantic playing style Billy frequently displays, and the way Mike plays on the audience from behind his drum kit.
So, there's a tail bit to the review of the double CD version of the recording this band had done of their concert of Tilburg's 013 venue, eh?
Ach, Raven...! Truth be told, when I found out this was among my to-do job, I was initially not too enthused. I'd come across albums by the band when they were first around, and not only got myself their first recordings (1981 debut album Rock Until You Drop, 1982's Wiped Out, 1983's All For One – with the 12-inch EP Break The Chain that was culled from it – and 1984's Stay Hard), but also a couple of their later albums (1988's Nothing Exceeds Like Excess and 1991's Architect Of Fear).
Hard to deny that, with the death of Ronnie James Dio on May 16, 2010 due to stomach cancer, one of the better singers in Heavy Metal music was brutally taken from that scene. A gap perhaps most badly felt by those who dealt with the man in daily life, as he was probably also one of the kinder people around!
