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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Audioslave-Live in Cuba: Deluxe Edition (2005)

Audioslave-Live in Cuba: Deluxe Edition (2005) (NTSC)

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Released 6-Nov-2005

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Music Featurette-Documentary - Out Of Exile
Alternative Version-TV Version
CD-sessions@aol music (5 Live Tracks)
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 2005
Running Time 90:39 (Case: 130)
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (74:17)
Dual Disc Set
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Lawrence Jordan
Bill Yukich
Studio
Distributor

Universal Pictures Home Video
Starring Chris Cornell
Brad Wilk
Tom Morello
Tim Commerford
Case Slip Case
RPI ? Music Audioslave
Soundgarden
Rage Against The Machine


Video (NTSC) Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 (1536Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.78:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    In the 1980s and early 1990s, the USSR was the new, uncharted frontier for western rock and pop bands. A broad range of artists ranging from Billy Joel to Uriah Heep all produced live concert films showing their triumphant concerts in front of thousands of screaming fans. Until recently there was still one country that represented uncharted territory for touring rock bands, and that is Cuba. I know little of Cuba's history or politics, but it is my understanding that they have been the subject of a particularly harsh trade embargo for many years. On this DVD, Audioslave document their being the first American rock band to perform in the South American country, filmed live at the Anti-Imperialist Plaza in Havana, Cuba. The concert was free for anyone to attend and held on May 6th, 2005 in front of sixty thousand jubilant hard rock fans.

    The one-off show was arranged as part of a cultural exchange between the Instituto Cubano de la Musica and the United States Treasury. I was surprised to learn that signatures were needed from both Dick Cheney and Fidel Castro in order for the show to go ahead, so the logistics and politics involved in bringing the show to fruition must have been a great challenge.

    If you're unfamiliar with the members of Audioslave and their history together, you'll find more information in my review of their previous DVD here.

    As far as the performance and the quality of the production is concerned, this DVD will make any Audioslave fan very happy indeed. The concert is directed by Lawrence Jordan and includes plenty of fast, energetic editing. The performance has been captured using many cameras (at least a dozen), some of which are handheld. The band takes a little while to warm up properly, in fact I would say they are not at their peak fitness at this early stage in the tour. There were also some major technical issues that delayed the show, as outlined in the accompanying documentary, and it is likely that these would have had an effect on their confidence initially. Anyway, the band are in full swing by the time they hit Gasoline and the performance just gets better from there.

    I was fortunate enough to see Audioslave in Sydney on their first tour together. They only had one album out at the time, so the selection of songs was pretty limited and their show was rather short as a consequence. In fact the only surprise I recall was Chris Cornell performing Elvis Costello's Peace Love and Understanding on acoustic guitar. As you would expect, the band have two albums of their own material now, so there are a broader range of songs on offer. As an even bigger surprise, the group chose to include songs from their previous bands. If you look at the song list below, you'll see popular Soundgarden tunes Spoonman, Outshined and Black Hole Sun are performed, while Rage Against The Machine classics Bulls on Parade and Sleep Now in the Fire are given a new treatment.

    Recent reports suggest Audioslave have completed writing their third album, and I for one am looking forward to hearing more from this outstanding rock band.

"It feels pretty good to say we were the first American rock band to put a stop to the rock 'n' roll embargo." - Brad Wilk (Drummer)

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Track Listing

1. Set It Off
2. Your Time Has Come
3. Like A Stone
4. Spoonman
5. The Worm
6. Gasoline
7. Heaven's Dead
8. Doesn't Remind Me
9. Be Yourself
10. Bulls On Parade
11. Sleep Now In The Fire
12. Out Of Exile
13. Outshined
14. Shadow On The Sun
15. Black Hole Sun
16. I Am The Highway
17. Show Me How To Live
18. Cochise

Transfer Quality

Video

    This video transfer is very good as far as live concert DVDs are concerned, and presented in NTSC format. I applaud Universal for resisting the temptation to release a PAL conversion. Obviously when it comes down to the nuts and bolts, NTSC resolution is inferior to a wholly PAL transfer, but at least we can be sure that this live performance is presented in the correct pitch and free of any hideous artefacts that can result from the NTSC to PAL conversion process.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, complete with 16x9 enhancement. The image is very tight to the frame and free of any black borders.

    The NTSC video transfer responded favourably to progressive processing via both my LCD projector and 76cm CRT, with smooth, clean pans and a crisp image with literally no aliasing to be seen. This concert has been professionally captured on digital video and aside from one camera on the drummer's left hand side the image quality is sharp and consistent, with perfect shadow detail. There was no low level noise evident in the transfer.

    The stage lighting is dominated by bold yellows and reds for the duration of the concert and these are carried with none of the bleeding or shimmering artefacts that are common in NTSC transfers.

    I didn't notice any MPEG compression artefacting of any kind. The transfer is completely free of any annoying grain or macro blocking, which is fantastic considering the high degree of motion and fast editing in the feature.

    There are no English subtitle streams accompanying the feature.

    This disc is dual layered (DVD9 formatted), with a layer transition placed during the feature at 74:17. This is directly after Chris Cornell's acoustic rendition of Black Hole Sun, and would only interrupt audience noise and cheering. My system is buffered, which made the transition completely seamless.

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

Audio

    There is only one soundtrack accompanying this live concert on DVD, in the form of a stereo Linear PCM stream encoded at the maximum bitrate (1536Kb/s). Admittedly, it is a little strange for such a recent production to not include any surround options whatsoever. Judging by other recent live concert DVD releases from bands such as Queensryche and Dream Theater, this lack of surround options appears to be becoming an unfortunate trend.

    Anyway, enough of complaining about what we don't have, lets look at what is included. As you would expect, this is a very clear and crisp stereo stream, mixed by Brendan O'Brien and Karl Egsieker with plenty of bite to the cymbals and hi-hats. The mid range tones dominate a little, making the guitars and vocals particularly powerful overall. My only gripe in this area is a distinct lack of deep bottom end, and indeed I found I had to extend the volume level way over my normal listening level in order to really feel this soundtrack in my chest. Mind you, with a band like this I need little encouragement to crank it a little.

    Chris Cornell's singing voice is clear and distinct throughout the performance, so there are very few enunciation issues to be worried about.

    I'm sad to report that audio sync is decidedly inconsistent, which makes for irritating viewing at times. Examples of this can be seen during the mellow introduction to Shadow on the Sun, as Brad Wilk is counting a moderate tempo on his hi-hats, and again on Brad's snare hits during the introduction to Cochise. What makes this strange is that much of the remaining performance is perfectly in sync. Given that this is clearly an intermittent problem, I would be inclined to point the finger at the editing process.

    Speaking of editing, there is another recurring issue that irritated me, and that is the cuts between songs. It's clear that not a lot of time has been spent blending the audio seamlessly from one song to the next. Much of these obvious edits involve the fading of audience applause and come across rather clumsily at times.

    I tried my hardest to find some evidence of panning within this stereo soundtrack, but came up with nothing. Everything appears to be centred; guitars, bass, drums and vocals are all neatly situated in the middle of the sound field and don't wander about at all. Out of curiosity, I attempted to process the soundtrack with Pro Logic II enabled and found it to be rather tinny and not at all listenable.

    There is obviously no LFE or surround channel activity to report.

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

Extras

Menu

    The menu pages are static, silent and not 16x9 enhanced. The main menu has five options; Play Concert, Song Select, Out Of Exile Documentary, TV Version and Playback Resume.

Documentary-Out of Exile (37:30)

    I must admit I know little of Cuba's history, but I still found this documentary very interesting, particularly from a musical point of view. The focus of the piece touches briefly on the bureaucratic difficulties involved in arranging the band's visit, and the press conference held at their hotel. More importantly, this documentary looks specifically at the culture, people and landmarks of Cuba as well as the U.S. embargo that has made life very restricted. Students at a Havana music college are so short of supplies they have no strings and equipment to go around, which affected the band deeply, as evidenced on the footage of their visit. The last few minutes shows the band at sound check in the afternoon before their performance, and regretfully explains some of the technical issues they experienced on stage prior to beginning their set.

    This documentary is presented with 16x9 enhancement and is directed by Bill Yukich. Some of the source material was shot in full frame video and has been stretched horizontally to match the majority of the widescreen footage.

Featurette-TV Version (22:11)

    This is merely a piece made for commercial television, with content condensed from both the feature concert and documentary. There are pauses for ad breaks and profanity is blanked out, however there are a few segments that appear to be unique to this featurette, which gives it some value I guess. Featured songs include Set it Off, Your Time Has Come, Be Yourself, Like A Stone and Cochise. This is presented in 1.33:1 and I noticed a considerable audio dropout at 19:25.

Bonus Audio CD- sessions@aol music (22:40)

    These songs were recorded live at a studio in Burbank, California on August 8th 2005. There is no crowd noise at all, just the band, and it is clear they are a lot more cohesive after months of touring. The stereo mix has a very immediate sound about it, and in some respects I would consider it superior to the feature's audio mix. Five songs are included, one of which is a song originally by Soundgarden (track 2) which is not performed in the Havana concert. Judging by the background vocals there may be overdubs present - but who cares!

  1. Be Yourself
  2. Loud Love
  3. Doesn't Remind Me
  4. Out of Exile
  5. Sleep Now in the Fire

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    This NTSC release is identical in features across the globe. Judging by the FBI warning contained on this disc, I'd presume ours is completely identical to the Region 1 release (aside from region coding, of course). If you're multi-region capable, I'd advise you to shop around for this one.

Summary

    Audioslave Live in Cuba represents a profound moment for rock music. Whether you're a fan of the band, or interested in the historic nature of this performance, this is a DVD that is well worth checking out

    The NTSC video transfer is excellent.

    The stereo audio transfer is good, but there are some editing and audio sync issues present.

    The extras are poignant, relevant and worthwhile viewing.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Rob Giles (readen de bio, bork, bork, bork.)
Friday, November 18, 2005
Review Equipment
DVDDenon DVD-3910, using DVI output
DisplaySanyo PLV-Z2 WXGA projector, Screen Technics Cinemasnap 96" (16x9). Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 720p.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials.
AmplificationDenon AVR-2802 Dolby EX/DTS ES Discrete
SpeakersOrpheus Aurora lll Mains (bi-wired), Rears, Centre Rear. Orpheus Centaurus .5 Front Centre. Mirage 10 inch sub.

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