Blue Oyster Cult-Long Day's Night, A (2002) |
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Blue Oyster Cult-Long Day's Night, A (2002) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Music |
Main Menu Audio Featurette-Behind The Scenes Interviews-Cast Featurette-Fan Interviews Credits Booklet |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2002 | ||
| Running Time | 118:03 (Case: 120) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (69:59) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Michael Drumm |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Warner Vision |
Starring |
Eric Bloom llen Lanier Donald Roeser Danny Miranda Bobby Rondinelli |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | $34.95 | Music | Blue Oyster Cult |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0  (448Kb/s)English dts 5.1 (1536Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | Unknown | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | None | Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
If you're already a Blue Oyster Cult fan, then you'll already have snapped up this DVD and I'll be preaching to the converted! This review is therefore directed to those of you wondering if this is a worthy addition to their rock music collection - the answer is an unqualified yes!
Blue Oyster Cult have been mostly around for just under 3 decades and the line-up for A Long Day's Night features 3 of the founding members, anchorman Eric Bloom (lead vocals, keyboard and rhythm guitar), guitarist and vocalist Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser and fellow keyboard player and guitarist Alan Lanier (romantically linked with poetess Patti Smith who co-wrote some of the band's earlier material). After the 2 other founding members, brothers Albert and Joe Bouchard, had left to pursue personal projects, an assortment of drum and bass players supported the band before current bass player Danny Miranda and sometime Black Sabbath drummer Bobby Rondinelli joined some 6 years ago.
Musically, the band could be described as playing variants of rock, R 'n' B and boogie and the themes of the songs are often based on Bloom's interest in fantasy, astrology and science fiction. The logo of the band, W is in fact the astrological symbol for Saturn, master of fate and time's destiny. A Long Day's Night refers to the date the concert was filmed - the northern hemisphere summer solstice, on June 21st, 2002. Every year the band visits the Navy Pier, Chicago and on this occasion word was out that this was to be a special 'for-DVD' concert and filmed on HiDef video. Many of the fans made the pilgrimage for the occasion from all over the world, and were rewarded with 2 hours of full-on performance. The band's history and many aspects of their philosophy, music and performance are complex and for devotees you can do no better than consult the BOC FAQ.
The songs follow a regular pattern of vocal intro breaking into an extensive improvised instrumental for most of the song, usually followed by a vocal refrain. These songs are complex and feature an infinite variety of subtle complexity. Buck, naturally, always plays guitar, whilst Bloom and Lanier alternate between rhythm guitar and vocals. On occasion we're treated to the three of them (plus Miranda on bass) laying down a guitar smorgasbord. Lanier's style, like his appearance, is skeletal and scratched out on an old Telecaster, but his lead is surprisingly fluid and reminiscent of early Mark Knopfler. Roeser is one of the age's maestro of the electric guitar. His style, played out on warm, mildly overdriven Gibson Sunburst Finish or custom Harper Guitar, is masterful whether running out sparkling riffs or playing out pure notes of feedback or sustain. Any budding guitarist will find the excellent video footage of fret and guitar technique fascinating. Lanier and Roeser's styles are very complementary and I enjoyed their lead duet on Harvester of Eyes at 26:30. Rondinelli and Miranda lay down excellent and solid rhythm support and don't let anyone tell you that Bloom's vocals are past it - they sound pretty d*** good to me!
There's a wide range of material presented here, 19 tracks to be precise, drawn from material over the last 30 years including the pleasingly melodic Dance on Stilts from their 2001 album Curse of The Hidden Mirror. Most of the favourites are played, their highest chart-hitting single Don't Fear The Reaper, the R & B classic ME 262, the self explanatory Buck's Boogie and the ballad Perfect Water .... For me the pick of the lot is Last Days of May which builds up to the most exciting rock-guitar finale I have ever seen - spectacular!
A good venue, fantastic camera-work and editing - all-in-all my current favourite live concert DVD!
| 1. Stairway To The Stars 2. Burning For You 3. Od'd On Life Itself 4. E.T.I. 5. Dance On Stilts 6. Harvester of Eyes 7. Buck's Boogie 8. Quicklime Girl 9. Flaming Telepaths 10. Harvest Moon | 11. Last Days Of May 12. Cities On Flame 13. M.E.262 14. Perfect Water 15. Lips In The Hills 16. Godzilla 17. Don't Fear The Reaper 18. Dominance And Submission 19. The Red And The Black |
The overall quality of this video is excellent and it enlarges very nicely to the big screen - on the small screen it is immaculate.
The video is not 16x9 enhanced and thus appears in letter-boxed widescreen at about a 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
The transfer lacks the pristine clarity of 35mm film, but being captured on HiDef video it is sharp for this kind of presentation. Shadow detail is limited by ambient detail but is sufficient and there is no low level noise. Examples of low light video grain are infrequent but can be seen at 18:27 and 31:14.
Colours were well rendered and there was only very occasional chroma noise (eg 31:11). The lighting was pretty well stock blue-red-green wash with frequent spot highlighting of Buck and his white custom Harper guitar.
There were no MPEG artefacts of note. Aliasing is quite equipment dependent and on my reference setup it was just about completely absent, whereas on a more typical domestic setup it was noticeable but not annoying. As it was captured on video, there were no film artefacts nor specific video tape transport problems.
There are no subtitles or lyrics.
The disc is RSDL formatted and the transition point occurs noticeably but appropriately between Chapters 13 and 14 at 69:59.
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The soundmix is pretty d*** good despite some negative comments in some R1 reviews - the only issues I would comment on are that Buck's vocals are a bit low level, making him sound like he's somewhere backstage and during Last Days of May Lanier's guitar is crossed, with sound coming from the right front whilst he is seen playing on stage right (left on screen).
The lyrics form only one part of the vast soundstage of Blue Oyster Cult and sadly, due to the American accents and style of rock singing, are often indecipherable. This is a shame as they're very interesting and of high quality. The band and publishers have long been coy on publishing song books or lyrics, but fortunately there's a few good quality web-sites on-line where you can browse the songs at your leisure (and no doubt sing-along next time you're playing air-guitar!).
There were no issues with lip or sound synch.
The music is written exclusively by members past and present of Blue Oyster Cult.
The surrounds were tastefully used to increase large hall ambience and reverberation from the performance as well as fill in suitable crowd noises. There was no gimmicky effects use which is appropriate for a live recording.
The subwoofer was well utilised to augment bass and kick drum
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| Overall | |
4 page glossy insert with good quality stills of the band and DVD credits.
6:07 of practice sessions and setup shots in same video format as the same feature with 2 channel sound. Passably interesting.
13:16 of the usual humdrum about the band and how fabulous everyone is!
Thankfully limited footage (6:46 total) of a motley assortment of Yahoos all hyped up over their heroes.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
As far as I can see the R4 and R1 versions appear identical apart from video encoding.
The video was excellent.
The audio was similarly excellent and presented in all 3 principal current formats.
The extras were paltry and not worth more than a passing look.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | EAD 8000 Pro, using Component output |
| Display | Panasonic PT-AE300E Projector onto 250cm screen. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Theta Digital Intrepid |
| Speakers | Martin Logan - Aeon Fronts/Script rears/Theatre centre/ - REL Strata III SW |