Moby-Live: Hotel Tour 2005 (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Bonus Track-Three bonus live tracks Music Video-Five promotional music videos Gallery-Video and still picture tour montage Short Film-Mr Fish CD-Bonus CD of thirteen remixed Moby songs
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	112:31 (Case: 150)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	George Scott
Studio Distributor	Mute Film EMI Music	Starring	Moby Laura Dawn Scott Frassetto Daron Murphy Luci Butler
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	?	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 (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	No

     Born Richard Melville Hall in 1965, Moby (named after the famous author of Moby Dick, Herman Melville, who was reputedly a distant relative) found an early interest in music which included training in classical piano, guitar and drums. In his mid teens Moby began dabbling with punk bands and had limited record releases until signing with the newly formed Instinct Records in 1989. In a departure from his punk roots Moby began a foray into electronic dance music and had his first significant hit with Go, a progressive house track that sampled the Laura Palmer's Theme from the TV show Twin Peaks. Moby changed record companies in 1993 and had another hit with the EP Move, an electronic dance number which reached number one on the American Dance Club charts. He also forged a reputation as a talented re-mixer of songs for artists such as Michael Jackson in addition to releasing further albums and touring with some success.

     Major success came to Moby after the release of the album Play in 1999, which went on to sell over ten million copies worldwide. The follow up album 18 also gained gold and platinum sales. In the subsequent years Moby collaborated with many artists in re-mixing and co-writing songs, as well as writing his own songs and touring. In 2005 Moby released the Hotel album which featured vocals from Laura Dawn and himself performed live in the studio. This album contained two hits in Lift Me Up and Slipping Away but did not have the success and critical recognition of earlier albums.

     Moby: Hotel Tour 2005 was filmed in Leuven, Belgium during the promotional tour of his studio album. Moby and album collaborator Laura Dawn are the principal vocalists with the band providing backing vocals. This concert showcases twenty four of Moby's best known and newer songs and includes rock, dance and house genres with a couple of covers thrown in for good measure. Overall the performances are excellent with his band really outstanding on the up-tempo numbers. Moby is known primarily for techno and dance releases so it's no surprise that these songs work best in the concert environment with the slower numbers letting the atmosphere drop somewhat in my opinion. Moby doesn't have a huge amount of charisma on stage and really needs a driving beat to pump up the excitement. Fortunately there are plenty of dance anthems to keep the audience jumping and clapping. Judging by the sweaty heaving of the crowd and some references by Moby in his between song banter it must have been a particularly hot night in Belgium and the dripping bodies really make it look like a proper rave party. Moby is at his best when taking control of the guitar or sharing the keyboards with the very accomplished (and easy on the eye) Luci Butler. In between songs he should really just keep quiet as the little sermons and inevitable "thank you, thank you, thank you" become tiresome. The closing number Feeling So Real is a highlight of his back catalogue and a great way to close off an exhilarating concert.

Video

     This 1.78:1 and 16x9 enhanced transfer has a bitrate that hovers around 9.0 M/bs. There are no noticeable flaws or artefacts, however as is common with concert videos there is some low level noise giving a grainy appearance in dark scenes, and also grain arising from digital noise in bright sequences. Colours overall are excellent with the frequent strobing effects handled well. There was no cross colouration or bleeding and there was no mpeg macro blocking artefacts. Overall an excellent video transfer is evidenced here.

     This is a dual layer disc but I saw no sign of the layer change using my equipment.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

     The audio was presented with a choice of Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 K/bs or LPCM 2.0 at 1536 K/bs. After initially starting with the 5.1 track I switched to LPCM stereo and was immediately impressed with the greater depth and clarity it provided. It was also quite a bit louder than the Dolby Digital offering. The surround channel use was fairly limited in the 5.1 version and so switching to stereo did not provide any significant disadvantage to the listening experience. With my decoder set to direct stereo and subwoofer activated the 2.0 track really blew me away. This mix is far and away the best stereo music concert DVD I have heard and is therefore recommended in preference to the Dolby Digital 5.1 option.

     There are unfortunately some problems with the LPCM track during Feeling So Real which oddly enough doesn't seem to be evident in the Dolby Digital version. Firstly there is a small glitch at around 107:58 and then noticeable synchronisation problems from around 108:59 onwards until the song ends.

     If not for the LPCM problems in the last track this disc would have received a five star score for audio. As it's only a minor aberration however I won't penalise it too much.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

     The menu is quite artistically designed but is unnecessarily difficult to navigate using a remote. Using a computer mouse makes the process much more intuitive.

Bonus Live Tracks

     These are all 1.78:1 aspect with Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448K/bs or LPCM 2.0 at 1536K/bs.

     Extreme Ways (3.54)

     In This World (4.08)

     Break On Through (3.25)

Promotional Videos

    Lift Me Up (3.07) - Letterboxed 1.33:1 aspect with LPCM 2.0 at 1536K/bs.

     Beautiful - Original Version (3.18) - 1.33:1 aspect with LPCM 2.0 at 1536K/bs.

     Raining Again (3.48) - Letterboxed 1.33:1 aspect with LPCM 2.0 at 1536K/bs.

     Spiders (3.44) - 1.33:1 aspect with LPCM 2.0 at 1536K/bs.

     Dream About Me (3.24) - Letterboxed 1.33:1 aspect with LPCM 2.0 at 1536K/bs.

Little Movie #1 (Around the World in 5,000 Frames) (3:27)

    1.33:1 aspect with LPCM 2.0 at 1536K/bs. Somewhat interesting montage of images and home video from the Moby Hotel tour with Dream About Me as the backing audio track.

Mr. Fish (2:37)

     1.33:1 aspect with Dolby Digital 2.0 at 192K/bs. I've no idea what this is doing as an extra in this package but I suspect it's just self indulgent rubbish. Don't waste 160 seconds sitting through it as there's no redeeming surprise at the end.

Bonus CD tracks

     1. Lift Me Up - Superdiscount Mix - Radio Edit (3:08) 2. Raining Again - Steve Angello's Vocal Mix (6:55) 3. Beautiful - Benny Benassi Remix (7:03) 4. Slipping Away - Axwell Vocal Mix (7:31) 5. Where You End - Tiga's All I Need Is To Be Sampled Mix (7:05) 6. Beautiful - F*** Me I'm Famous Remix by David Guetta & Joachim Garraud (6:43) 7. Slipping Away - MHC Radio Edit (3:38) 8. Dream About Me - Sebastian Ingrosso Remix (6.36) 9. Lift Me Up - Mylo Mix (6:45) 10. Raining Again - Ewan Pearson Vocal (7:07) 11. Dream About Me - Booka Shade Remix (7:14) 12. Slipping Away - Zloot Remix (4:26) 13. Dream About Me - The Shortwave Set Pick 'n' Mix (4:35).

    Content appears identical on all regional releases but I can't be certain that the LPCM glitch described is duplicated in the NTSC version. If the price is right you might be better off importing a Region 1 version on the chance it is glitch free.

     Moby is not a favourite performer of mine but I must say that this was a very enjoyable concert. His up-tempo songs really work well and the band and co-vocalist is very good. Moby shows his musical ability on keyboards, guitar and percussion and there's no doubting his talents.

    The video quality is excellent. The audio quality is very good and would have been excellent if not for the LPCM track glitch.

     Extras are good.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall