Jeff Buckley-Now See Hear (Live in Chicago DVD/Mystery White Boy CD) (1995)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation Discography Music Video-So Real ( Acoustic ) Music Video-Last Goodbye ( Acoustic ) Featurette-Electronic Press Kit Web Links CD-Mystery White Boy Booklet
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	97:42 (Case: 125)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (67:34)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Sony Music	Starring	Jeff Buckley
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	$29.95	Music	None Given

    Another Now See Hear release by Sony, this time with a DVD that is better than the CD by a long shot, the awesome Jeff Buckley: Live In Chicago DVD presented in a new format, although not remastered.

    If you have not come across Jeff Buckley before, you are honestly missing out on an important piece of musical genius. A crooner, a lyricist, a poet, and a musician, Buckley had an ability to pierce your heart with his voice regardless of gender. Well known for his ballad style and his long, meandering wailing as introduction to his tunes, and his often distant and almost shy disposition. His seminal album Grace is one of the great albums of the 1990s, and his music has not dated the way that so much popular music just falls by the wayside.

    Live In Chicago has 13 tracks performed at the Cabaret Metro in 1995. It is an amazing concert, showcasing Buckley’s many musical talents and his raw energy as a performer, with probably the best live version ever of “Hallelujah”. As it all closes to an end, you long for more, and want to rage against the fact that Buckley died so young, especially before producing any more of this beautiful music.

    A tragic figure to be sure, he nevertheless had the ability to produce breathtaking performances. Here is one such performance. If you don’t own it yet, pick it up now.

Video

    This is a re-release of the Live in Chicago DVD put out in 2000. There has been no tweaking. No changes. Everything is as it was and I don’t have much to add to Anthony C’s review.

    Presented in 1.33:1, Full Frame, this is the original aspect ratio.

    The quality of the picture is quite good, although far from perfect. It is reasonably clear and crisp, suffering from only a slight softness from a distance given the smoke and lighting up on stage.

    Colours are bright and vibrant, with a blue tone light washing over the stage for most of the performance.

    MPEG artefacts are fairly minimal. The most annoying artefacts are the persistent cross-colourisation on closely grouped lines. This occurs fairly regularly with the strings on the guitars and also occasionally with the patterns on shirts and the amplifiers behind the band on stage. There is some faint aliasing, but nothing really noteworthy.

    There are no film artefacts like dirt or hairs, but music videos as a rule are generally pretty clean (unless the effect is to be otherwise) so this was no surprise.

    The dual-layer pause is at 67:34, in between “What Will You Say” and “Grace”. While noticeable, it is not really distracting.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two soundtracks available – an English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround track and a Linear PCM Stereo track.

    The 5.1 Dolby Digital track has a warm, rich surround ambience that really swallows you up. It has a dynamic range and fantastic clarity, accentuating the bass and giving full effect to Buckley’s falsetto wailing.

    It is not overwhelming in its use of the subwoofer, but there is not much call for it anyway.

    By comparison, the 2.0 Linear PCM track is pretty thin and not did not have much in the way of surround presence. It has a decent range, but a lot of the bass is lost, leaving the whole thing a little treble-heavy which does not suit the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menus

    All menus are presented in 1.33:1, non-16x9 enhanced, with a 2.0 Dolby Stereo soundtrack.

Bonus Tracks “So Real” (4:41) and “Last Goodbye” (4:38)

    These are two of the group’s hit singles performed live on acoustic guitar for JBTV. Presented in 1.33:1, 2.0 Linear PCM.

Featurette – “Grace” (16:38)

    This is a short feature produced by Columbia Records featuring interviews with Jeff Buckley talking about growing up loving music and how he finally achieved the success he did with his album Grace. Presented in 1.33:1, 2.0 Linear PCM.

CD – Jeff Buckley “Mystery White Boy” (78:35)

    This CD is only so-so, not exhibiting the masterful production done on Grace, and without the emotion or the energy of the Live In Chicago set.

    Aside from the NTSC format and the inclusion of the Mystery White Boy CD, these versions would appear to be the same. Given the bonus CD and the cost, I would go for R4.

    Jeff Buckley: Live In Chicago is all about the music, and the DVD certainly seems to be presented that way. An awesome show featuring Buckley’s best tracks with some interesting live improvisation.

    The video is okay.

    The audio is very good, but it does not come close to the recently released The Cure: Trilogy DVD.

    The extras were okay, and I liked the idea of the inclusion of an accompanying CD, even if Mystery White Boy has absolutely nothing on Grace.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall