Peter Gabriel-Growing Up: Live (2003)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Booklet Featurette-The Story Of Growing Up (9:40) Gallery-Photo-Tony Levin's View (Bonus Track: Remix Of More Than This ) DVD Credits-(1:30) DVD-ROM Extras
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	133:42 (Case: 131)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (59:24)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Hamish Hamilton
Studio Distributor	Real World Warner Vision	Starring	Peter Gabriel
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Peter Gabriel

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (1536Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, during credits

    Short version:

    Peter Gabriel is a musical genius whose talents not only see him creating trends but whose eye for the visual is extraordinary, both talents being amply demonstrated by this excellent concert. With such a terrific concert being presented on a visual and audio treat of a DVD, this simply cannot be recommended highly enough.

    Long version:

    When he left the band he helped to found, Genesis, in 1975, I seriously doubt that anyone could have predicted the solo career course that was to be navigated by the immensely talented Peter Gabriel. He was never one to shy away from being different, and of one thing there was perhaps no disagreement: if ever a solo artist would try and get away with having their first three solo albums eponymously named, then Peter Gabriel would be the one. And of course he was. Number one was released in 1977, featuring the songs Solsbury Hill and Here Comes The Flood as the highlights on an excellent album. Number two followed in 1978 with number three coming in 1980. The latter was perhaps the best album he ever made with just about every track being a standout, but personal favourites include No Self Control, I Don't Remember, Games Without Frontiers and Biko. From then on it became a veritable deluge of superb albums that continues pretty well up to today. So good was the material he was producing that even though not a commercial artist he started having enormous chart success, not just on the strength of some superb music but also for some superb music videos - with Sledgehammer being one of the most memorable.

    Since nearly every one of his solo albums is in my CD collection, with five of the titles still being held on vinyl and with the only SACDs in my collection apart from Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, you might just gather correctly that this is one artist that I really do enjoy listening to. So there was little incentive necessary to get me to take this title for review. That I end up with a free copy of what is one of the best concert videos I have ever reviewed was just the icing on the cake as far as I was concerned.

    Recorded in Milan over two nights in May 2003, about the only thing that this DVD makes me regret is the fact that I was not there to experience the concerts live. For what we have on this video would indicate that I, and no doubt many others, missed out on one of the most visually exciting concerts that we are ever likely to see. Thankfully, the people who captured it for release on video did a superb job and what we have here is as near to a concert experience as you can have without actually being there.

    Sure it would have been nice if it was about twice as long and it would have been nice if a lot more of his older material was included here, but as this was the tour associated with the album Up it is hardly surprising that the more recent material dominates.

    As it is, the DVD presents a superb concert that I thoroughly enjoyed (an increasing rarity amongst the music DVDs I review) and does so with transfers that are basically second to none. If your tastes run in the opposite direction to the boring crap that passes for most popular music today, then this is a concert DVD that has to be in your collection.

    No ifs, no buts, no maybes. Just go and buy this DVD.

Video

    There is almost a film-like quality to the video transfer at times, which is something that can rarely be said for concert videos. The presentation is 16x9 enhanced 1.78:1 and it is really one terrific looking transfer. You should note, however, that one song segment - The Barry Williams Show - has been deliberately manipulated to introduce interference and other stuff, but this is exactly as intended. There are also a number of small webcam-style cameras used to record images of Peter Gabriel in particular and the quality of these is less than the rest of the transfer (but not by much).

    Aside from the occasional lapses of focus, the transfer is quite wonderfully sharp, rather well detailed and generally very good in the visuals department. Where the transfer excels, however, is in the clarity, for there is scarcely a hint of grain here so all that wonderful visual stuff going on during the concert can be seen in all its glory. With the excellent detail, there is certainly plenty to be seen too, and even the stuff from underneath the stage is quite easy to see. Shadow detail is very good for a concert video.

    The transfer is really vibrant and the colours come up very well. Off the top of my head, there are only a few concert DVDs where the colours would be better than here. Tones are consistent and well saturated throughout, even under the withering glare of the stage lighting. Sure there are washouts, but with intense stage lighting like this that is hardly surprising, and certainly not bothersome. The only hint at oversaturation was in the intense red lighting around the 13:40 mark and in the blue lighting around the 20:00 mark. Colour bleed was not an issue at all.

    There did not appear to be any MPEG artefacts floating around the transfer. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some minor aliasing here and there that really was not that bothersome, with the usual culprits to the fore: microphones and keyboards, although at one point (10:08) the stage floor aliases rather noticeably. There was some very minor moiré artefacting in the stage floor at 20:06. There were no obvious film artefacts at all in the transfer.

    This is an RSDL formatted DVD with the layer change coming a tad noticeably at 59:24. This was during the intro to a song and is probably the best place to try and hide it, even though that always is difficult in concert videos.

    There are no subtitles on the DVD for the feature, which is perhaps the one disappointment here. That would be a minor concern in comparison to the general quality exuded by the video transfer.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are three soundtracks on the DVD, being the defacto standard from this source: an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and an English dts 5.1 soundtrack. The dts soundtrack is a full bit-rate effort, and is a beauty. The six channel soundtracks were listened to in their entirety with the two channel just getting some sampling.

    None of the soundtracks exhibited any problems with audio sync, and there were no problems with hearing and understanding the vocals and modest dialogue. The only issue is just ever so occasionally the bass gets a little too much in the mix and slightly drowns the vocals.

    The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is a very good effort indeed, one of the best that I have heard on a music DVD for quite a while. Were it not for a very slight drop-out of the audio at 111:42 and some very modest problems with bass reverb on a couple of occasions, this would have been a perfect track. The surround channel use is excellent with the whole mix focused very much to the front but with plenty of ambient surround to provide a very near concert experience. The rear surrounds have been used somewhat sparingly in order that when the major stuff comes from that area it stands out in every way. I really could not fault the style of the soundtrack at all, and it was particularly noteworthy that the bass was generally well handled in the overall mix, being complementary rather than dominating.

    If the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack was very good, then I might be fighting for adequate words to describe the dts soundtrack. Take the Dolby Digital soundtrack, add more bass, add more body, add more definition and crank it up LOUD. And die a very happy person! This is a gorgeous sounding effort, most notably for the clarity and definition of the sound. The surround encoding is far more obvious here but the result is far better too, especially with the rear surrounds really kicking in some positive action on top of the ambience. One really excellent soundtrack that just deserves to be listened to repeatedly.

    Forget the lack of body in comparison to the six channel soundtracks, and just admire the quality of the Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, especially when you crank it up. Featuring some surround encoding by the sound of it, there is certainly nothing wrong with this terrific two channel sound. If you unfortunately cannot handle six channel sound, but have the ability to crank this up loud, then you should be truly pleased with the result. Wonderful stuff.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    You tend to expect little in the way of extras with music DVDs and so anything is usually a hefty bonus. Well, there is a little more than "anything" here, making this almost a positively rare DVD indeed in the genre.

Menu

    With some very good audio enhancement and some modest animation to boot, these are certainly better than the average efforts we tend to come across. One nifty little aspect of the menus is that in the Audio Options menu, it tells you which soundtrack is the current selection and only offers the other two options as selectable options.

Booklet

    Whilst some actual notes or even an essay would have been very nice, the photographs included here are very decent.

Featurette - The Story Of Growing Up (9:40)

    Unfortunately not featuring any direct interview material, this is a bunch of video material that covers aspects of the concert, from setting up to actual performance, over which Peter Gabriel talks about the gestation of the tour, the execution and the people he worked with. Quite reasonable stuff, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, it is 16x9 enhanced and features Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. The technical quality is very good. There are selectable subtitles for this in English, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish and Italian.

Gallery - Photo: Tony Levin's View (5:05)

    A self-running effort that features some of the photographic work of the bass player Tony Levin, over which plays a stripped-down almost unmixed version of More Than This. The song is more interesting than the photos but it's a nice enough inclusion anyway. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (16x9 enhanced) with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

DVD Credits (1:30)

    Rather unusually these are not just pages of notes but are self-running credits done in a rather nice fashion. Something a bit different.

DVD-ROM Extras

    Well, I suppose that it qualifies as such but you will not find anything on the DVD to tell you about it. It is briefly mentioned on the cover slick but there are no instructions on how to access it. The penny might actually drop if you wander through the booklet and on one of the pages is a reference to www.petergabriel.com/growingup. Well, if you head that way, you just might not be able to enjoy the interactive version of Growing Up. To do that apparently you need to head to www.noodleheaven.com to download the track (after creating an account and downloading the Noodle player program) from which you can create your own remix of the song, but I am taking someone else's word on this as I simply could not be bothered going through all this rigmarole. The official web site also has some other stuff, including a video trailer and video tour diaries, if you want to linger there. The whole Noodle thing is a right pain and quite why no one bothered to use their noodle and actually make any mention of the need to go to Noodle Heaven (or even explain what Noodle Heaven is) in the DVD package is quite staggeringly stupid.

    From the limited reviews found with respect of the Region 1 release, there is no difference between the two region release other than the actual package in which the DVD comes. The Region 1 release appears to come in a Digipak effort as opposed to the Amaray case of Region 4. All in all, there seems to be nothing to really choose between the two releases. The presumption is that the Region 2 release is the same as the Region 4.

    Well, after having to review such a disappointing release as Asia: Live In Moscow 1990, it is almost sweet reward to have to review Peter Gabriel: Growing Up - Live. For all that is wrong with music DVDs as exemplified by the Asia release, this provides the perfect counter-argument about what can be so very right about music DVDs. In just about every way this is a wonderful DVD and heads to very near the top of my essential music DVD list. Wonderful video is matched to some at times sublimely superb audio, and on their own that would be enough to make this package stand out. But there is more with a half-decent extras package that is regrettably somewhat atypical of the genre. All in all, I have not enjoyed a music DVD package quite as much for a fair old while. If the music is to your taste, this is an essential inclusion in your collection.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall