Bonnaroo Music Festival (2002) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Gallery-Photo Biographies-Cast-Setlists Theatrical Trailer Additional Footage-Audience comments Credits-For Bonnaroo Festival and DVD Booklet
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	190:01 (Case: 180)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (69:35) Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	LA Johnson Arthur Rosato
Studio Distributor	Upstream Multimedia Warner Vision	Starring	Les Claypool’s Flying Frog Brigade Dirty Dozen Brass Band Government Mule Drums and Tuba Ween Col. Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains Ben Harper Widespread Panic Blind Boys of Alabama Norah Jones Campbell Brothers Jack Johnson Trey Anastasio
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	$59.95	Music	Various

Video (NTSC)		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)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The Bonnaroo Music Festival was first held in the northern hemisphere summer of 2002. On a field in rural Tennessee, a sell-out crowd of some 70,000 punters turned up for three days of music, fun, laughs, and more music. Held over the weekend of June 21-23, the event was a massive success and as a result a repeat event was instantly planned for this year. This double DVD set captures not just the music and the musicians who appeared, but also some of the behind-the-scenes antics from the support crews and the massive audience.

    The festival was the brain-child of four concert promoters, who formed Superfly Productions. Their aim was to bring together a group of jam-band musicians who might not have enjoyed massive commercial success or mainstream radio airplay but who still had a strong and large grass-roots following. An almost anti-commercial feel was evident throughout, with very little advertising or promotion of the event. Word of mouth and Internet email were the only forms of mass advertising and it worked with the event selling out.

    An amazing array of musical talent rocked up for the three days. Virtually the whole gamut of music styles, ranging from country, blues, bluegrass, soul, funk, jazz, gospel, rock and even hip-hop were represented. Artists such as Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool, String Cheese Incident, Widespread Panic, Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Norah Jones, Galactic and The Blind Boys of Alabama are just some of the 24 acts that appear in this three hour plus show.

Video

    This is a widescreen documentary/concert and is presented in an aspect of 1.78:1. It is also 16x9 enhanced. It is an NTSC transfer so make sure your display device is so capable.

    There appears to have been a variety of camera equipment used to record this, though thankfully the very best gear available appears to have been used for the actual live performances. Some of the behind-the-scenes activity and various crowd antics appear to have been captured on mini-DV style camera and as such the quality is not quite as good.

    Generally it is incredibly sharp throughout, with heaps of fine detail and few of the common problem associated with concert footage. There is no trace of any edge enhancement. There are no problems with shadow detail. Grain is very minimal except when intentionally applied during some of the behind-the-scenes footage. There is no low level noise.

    The colour palette is extensive and extremely well saturated with no problems in terms of bleeding or oversaturation. Warm and saturated hues of every colour imaginable are on display from both the bands and the crowd. The colours are certainly not affected by the usual problems associated with so many concert shows. Much of the footage is during daylight hours and as a result the colours are not hampered by any bright lighting. The couple of night time performances featured don't suffer from too many of the normal problems associated with the lighting as it was kept to quite conservative levels and intensity.

    There are no MPEG artefacts present, and no video artefacts of any sort. Given the nature and youth of the source material, this is not unexpected.

    No subtitles are available on this disc which is a shame.

    This is a dual disc set with disc one being dual layered (DVD-9) and featuring RSDL formatting. The layer change on that disc occurs at 69:35 between the two Widespread Panic performances. It is certainly not disruptive to the flow of the show at all, occurring on a shot of the crowd. The second disc is a single layered disc (DVD-5).

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are three audio tracks for your listening pleasure. Two are Dolby Digital efforts in 5.1 and 2.0 stereo respectively. The other is a full bit-rate (1536 Kb/s) dts 5.1 track. I listened to both 5.1 tracks and sampled the Dolby Digital 2.0 track briefly as I scrolled through to the others.

    The Dolby Digital and dts tracks are extremely similar in terms of quality. Both offer plenty of clean instrument and vocal separation, rear channel use for the crowd noise, and a wide dynamic range. The dts track is perhaps just a little bit warmer in delivery than the Dolby Digital, but rest assured both are superb efforts. It really is just like being there.

    The dialogue is excellent. There are no problems with audio sync. The normal documentary dialogue is anchored to the centre channel, while the vocals are presented in a very wide soundstage across all the front speakers.

    There is plenty of surround channel use from both 5.1 soundtracks. The usual sounds of audience clapping and cheering from the rears emanate throughout the performance to impart that 'front-row' feeling.

    The sub is nicely integrated and is pretty much in use during the whole show.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Gallery-Photo

    31 photos, one for each of the bands or artists performing and a few for the staff members who helped out. These photos are really not that great in terms of delivery as they are more of a montage of each artist and as a result come across as being quite small on the screen.

Biographies-Cast

    Extensive biographical details and set lists for all the artists that performed over the weekend.

Theatrical Trailer

    This is a pretty significant trailer (if you can call it that). Clocking in at 8:12 minutes, this is more of a rapid fire summary of the whole Bonnaroo experience.

Additional Footage

    Some more footage (labelled as outtakes) that didn't make the final cut of the programme. Runs for 5:50 minutes. Most of it is reaction from various crowd members and some of the funnier moments as they all get stuck in the massive traffic jam trying to leave the venue.

Credits

    A scrolling list of the people (and there are an awful lot of them) that had some hand in the staging of this event.

Booklet

    A 12-page full colour booklet that contains photos, the full performance schedule for the weekend, and a two-page introduction to the event from rock journalist Keith Spera.

    From the information I can gather, the Region 1 title is exactly the same as the Region 4.

    This disc can barely be faulted. Three hours of footage from a magnificent concert festival. The music was the important thing at the show and this disc captures the magic of it magnificently. An amazingly diverse range of musical genres is on display, all performed by artists who are incredibly passionate about their material and enjoyed by an audience who is equally passionate about enjoying it. Everybody should find something to satisfy them here.

    The video is exceptional. Clean, clear, vibrant, artefact free and 16x9 enhanced.

    The audio matches the video for quality. The Dolby Digital and dts soundtracks are first class all the way.

    The extras are a little thin, but after three hours of full-on concert material I'm not complaining.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall