All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson, An (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Gallery-Photo Featurette-Do It Again-Brian Wilson Interviews-Cast-11
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	95:57
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (63:51)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Bruce Gowers
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Brian Wilson Chazz Palminteri Paul Simon Carly Simon Vince Gill Billy Joel Elton John David Crosby Aimee Mann Matthew Sweet Darius Rucker Ann Wilson Nancy Wilson
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$39.95	Music	Various

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (1536Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	French German	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This concert was held in March 2001 as a tribute to legendary Beach Boys front-man Brian Wilson. A proverbial cavalcade of stars turned out for this event to pay tribute and have a little fun. Artists performing included Elton John, Paul Simon, Ricky Martin, Billy Joel, and Wilson Phillips. Special guests on stage include Sir George Martin, Cameron Crowe, and Dennis Hopper. It was held in the giant Radio City Music Hall in New York.

    Brian Wilson's life story is played out on a couple of large screens in between performances of The Beach Boys classics from the many and varied musical stars. The night starts off with a somewhat strange choice - Ricky Martin singing California Girls, and to me it just doesn't work. Paul Simon performs Surfer Girl - and things start to improve. By the time Billy Joel belts out Don't Worry Baby, and the bluesy vocals of Matthew Sweet and Hootie's Darius Rucker rock with Sail On Sailor, the night is off and running. Other highlights for me were a very good version of what is often regarded as the best American pop song of all time by Heart and a baritone by the name of Jubilant Sykes. They step out to perform Good Vibrations, a difficult song to perform live due to the nature of its structure. They do a pretty good job. The night ends with the whole cast on stage rocking as Brian Wilson himself leads the band in performances of Barbara Ann, and Fun, Fun, Fun. Seeing backing vocals from Paul Simon, Elton John, and Billy Joel (the latter two even jive together) is a highlight.

    I think the biggest negative this disc has going against it is the title. An All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson just isn't catchy enough and is really quite unimaginative.

Video

    An All-Star Tribute to Brian Wilson is another concert presented widescreen. This one is presented in an aspect of 1.78:1. Unfortunately it is NOT 16x9 enhanced.

    Despite the lack of 16x9 enhancement, the image does not suffer too greatly, maintaining a decent level of overall sharpness. Not quite as good as if it were 16x9 enhanced, but satisfactory nonetheless. There is an occasional trace of edge enhancement, though it is seldom bothersome. Shadow detail is exemplary at all times. Grain is minimal and there is no low level noise.

    Colours are well rendered with no apparent problems. Skin tones are natural.

    There are no MPEG artefacts. The transfer is also clean of any video artefacts.

    There are only two subtitle streams present; French and German, both languages with which I am unfamiliar. I cannot therefore offer any comments on their accuracy.

    This is a dual layered disc with RSDL formatting. The layer change is located at 63:51 just after Good Vibrations. Reasonable placement. Noticeable, but not obtrusive.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are a choice of three audio tracks; two Dolby Digital tracks in 5.1 and 2.0 variants, and also a dts 5.1 track. I listened to both 5.1 tracks and verified the presence of the Dolby Digital 2.0 track. There is little difference between the Dolby Digital 5.1 and dts tracks. Both offer a wide and enveloping sound presence with decent bass response and consistent rear channel use.

    Dialogue is well produced, though Brian Wilson can be slightly difficult to hear towards the end of the show. There are no audio sync problems.

   There is quite a significant amount of surround use. The audience noise is dominant at the end of each song, but there is also a reasonable amount of instrument separation to the rears. The best use occurs during Love and Mercy where the Harlem Boys Choir vocals emanate from all channels.
   
    The subwoofer is pleasantly integrated into the overall soundmix and draws little attention to itself.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu Animation & Audio

Gallery-Photo

    Several photos presented with introductory text. These photos are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and are not 16x9 enhanced. This is probably amongst the worst photo galleries that I have seen, not because of the quality, but because of the lack of control you have over it. The gallery runs by itself for 7:12 minutes with each photo and text screen staying on screen for 10 seconds each - way too long for me and it gets quite frustrating towards the end.

Featurette - Bonus Track 'Do It Again'

    Running for 3:11 minutes this is a track from the concert that didn't make the final feature. Full Dolby Digital 5.1, 2.0, or dts soundtracks are available. Presented in an aspect of 1.66:1 it is not 16x9 enhanced.

Interview-Cast

    Various small interview segments with most of the stars that performed on the night. People such as David Crosby, Elton John, Darius Rucker, and Sir George Martin offer their thoughts on what Brian Wilson's music means to them and such. Most run for between 20 seconds and one minute. Presented full screen 1.33:1 with audio provided by a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Somewhat difficult to navigate as each star has two to three segments each that must be selected individually even though most only run for a few seconds.

    The Region 1 disc is identical to ours. Have to favour the local product here.

    I've never been a great fan of tribute shows. They never seem to have a real spark to them and never seem to get out of first gear, maybe because each artist only gets a few minutes to perform and as a result none of them really get going. This show does improve significantly in the second half. The performances by Darius Rucker/Mathew Sweet, Billy Joel, Heart, and the full cast in the closing numbers are the highlights.

    Technically, the disc cannot be faulted. The video is very good, considering the lack of 16x9 enhancement.

    The audio is also pretty decent, though about we should expect for concerts nowadays.

    There are only minimal extras - though the interviews are interesting if a little difficult to navigate.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall