Eric Bibb-Live at The Basement (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Interviews-Cast Music Video-Kokomo - Live at thebasement.com.au
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	56:23 (Case: 84)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Ross Wood
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Eric Bibb Dave Bronze
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Eric Bibb

    Gospel and blues singer/guitarist Eric Bibb is certainly no stranger to Australia, having played in a number of venues since 2001. In fact, as I am writing this review (September 2003) he is currently touring a number of cities in Australia. This is a recording of a performance held on 21 March 2002 at Sydney's "The Basement" Jazz night club, and forms part of the "Live At The Basement" webcast and DVD series.

    Eric Bibb was born in New York City in 1951. His father, Leon Bibb, was a singer in the 1960s. He has released several albums in the last six years, the most recent being Natural Light.

    In this concert, Eric performs on stage with long time collaborator and producer of some of his albums Dave Bronze on bass. Eric performs a selection of 14 songs from various albums, along with some stage talk and anecdotes.

    I found this a reasonably enjoyable concert. All the songs were pleasant to listen to, even if none of them particularly grabbed my attention.

Video

    We get a full frame PAL transfer, presumably in the intended aspect ratio (although given the recent age of the recording I would have expected them to frame this in 16x9).

    Now, this is the way all concert DVD video transfers should look. The concert appears to be captured on digital video, and the images are razor sharp with fully saturated and vibrant colours.

     The transfer is pretty much reference quality, with the only video artefacts that I spotted being occasional minor aliasing around guitar strings and very minor Gibb's effect ringing towards the end.

    Detail levels are extremely high, and I can clearly distinguish every pore and bead of sweat on Eric's face, the texture of his Panama hat, and even the brand name and model number of the microphone.

    There are no subtitle tracks on this single sided single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one audio track: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s).

    This is also a reference quality audio transfer. I've been to the Basement night club, and the audio track captures the acoustics of the rather small and cramped venue very well, with an overall slightly bright sound and the low ceilings creating a fairly "live" soundstage.

    This appears to be a discrete 5.1 audio track, with the rear channels mainly used for ambience and audience noises. I could quite easily believe that somehow I had been transported into the venue whilst sitting in my living room.

    The subwoofer channel is lightly used to support the low frequencies of the music.

    Eric's dialogue in between songs comes through clearly and I did not notice any audio synchronization issues.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Extras include an interview featurette and a music video.

Menu

    The menu is full frame and static. However, there are brief menu transitions. For some reason, the disc does not load properly on my Panasonic DVD-RP82 (I had to manually select Title 3 to get it going) although it loaded correctly on my Sony DVP-S336 and on a PC running PowerDVD 4.0.

Interviews-Cast (13:46)

    This is presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s). Eric is captured at various locations at the Rocks and around the Sydney Opera House. He talks about various subjects including his music, his career, his sidekick Dave Bronze, songwriting, working with his dad Leon, and includes a performance of the song Matilda (which is inspired by his daughter Matilda as well the Melbourne suburb of St. Kilda) and Sebastian (an instrumental about his son Sebastian).

Music Video - Kokomo - Live at thebasement.com.au (3:25)

    This features Eric Bibb performing Kokomo at the thebasement.com.au studio. It is presented in full frame and Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s).

    This disc is currently not available in R1, although there is an NTSC R0 version of this disc (with identical features) also available.

    This is a recording of a performance by blues singer/guitarist Eric Bibb together with Dave Bronze on bass. The performance was held at the Basement jazz night club in Sydney in 2002.

    The video transfer is of reference quality.

    The audio transfer is of reference quality.

    Extras include an interview and a music video.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall