Genesis-The Way We Walk: Live in Concert (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Introduction Scene Selection Animation Multiple Angles-Notes about Cameras and location/2 - 4 for entire concert! Gallery-Programme Interviews-Cast Gallery-Photo-2 Informational Subtitles
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	133:45 (Case: 145)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (30:13) Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Jim Yukich
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Genesis
Case	Brackley-Trans-Lipped-Dual
RPI	$59.95	Music	Genesis

    Even though Genesis officially called it quits back in 1996 (they did reform briefly for one show in honour of their manager, Tony Smith, back in 2000) and there has been talk of a reformation, the three core members of the band - Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford  - haven't followed up on the speculation, so it's all talk. Still, the release of many of their old concerts and reissuing of videos from previous years is another timely reminder why Genesis were such a successful band, since their music, which has hardly changed since the mid 70s except to become slightly more commercial, is still as fresh today as it was when the band were touring back in the mid 90s. It is no surprise, then, that their music does translate well to concert, but more surprising is the quality of this offering. Taken from the 1993 The Way We Walk tour, the sound and vision is as crisp and clean as if it were performed today. Accompanied by two stalwarts of their touring days in Chester Thompson and Daryl Stuermer, the boys definitely 'give good concert'.

    In addition to the usual concert setup, the whole stage is lauded over by a giant three-part screen (a Jumbotron) that displays various camera shots of the group performing and some video outtakes from their music videos. The actual concert running time is a little over two hours, but with the multi-angle vision offered by this DVD, you can easily entertain yourself for over eight hours all-told. Augmenting this multi-camera/angle setup is the quality of the actual footage, which is some of the best I've seen on video for a concert.

    If you are a real Genesis fan, some of their best songs from the past fifteen years are performed in this concert, including an excellent medley of stuff from the 70s (Lamb Lies Down..., The Music Box, Firth of Fifth, I Know What I Like, etc), and since I've always maintained that Phil Collins is Peter Gabriel's long lost brother (they sound so alike at times), the medley had me flicking back through my old CD collection to listen to the albums once again. Backed up by excellent renditions of Driving The Last Spike (possibly my favourite Genesis track), Domino and I Can't Dance, as well as some from their later albums, this is a must for all true Genesis fans.

Video

    These discs represent the best 'in concert' video I've seen so far and viewing was a real pleasure. As a showpiece, this is a classic and gives you an idea of what DVD can offer up. The odd, occasional, problem does crop up, but is more to do with the concert setup than anything else and you can forgive the odd glitch given the overall quality.

    The only real pity is that this was shot (and shown) in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, but in 1993 I doubt they had much thought about DVD.

    For a concert, this is about as sharp and delineated as I've ever seen. It's almost like being there. There is absolutely no noise on display and if you can spot grain then it would only be when the smoke machine is working overtime, and even then it's barely visible. Shadow detail is as good as you'd expect in a concert. For the most part, attention is probably diverted either to individual band members (given the camera angles you can select) or the Jumbotron overhead showing off video footage. The main video uses all the cameras available, but the consistency of vision is excellent.

    The colour is exceptionally good for a concert. The usual lighting problems occur with oversaturation on the odd shots, but no bleeding was seen and for the most part the lighting added to the atmosphere and wasn't a distraction.

    Apart from the huge screen being used as a backdrop for the band and exhibiting constant moiré effects, this is immaculate from an artefact point of view. There were no visible specks or flakes to be seen, no MPEG artefacts, no aliasing, no pixelization, zip.

    There are no subtitles available on this disc. Instead, the subtitle option is used to show the camera angles available in a specific song by offering a little icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

    Disc 1 has a layer change at 30:13 and it is both terribly located and completely disruptive to the flow of the song. An approximate 1 second pause is accompanied by muting of the soundtrack for an extra couple of seconds after that. Disc 2 initially presented a bit of a dilemma. There are two notable pauses during the playing of the disc. The first is at 35:28 and again causes a major pause in the middle of a song with corresponding muted audio for a couple of seconds afterwards. There is another 1 second pause at 43:47, but is very quick and clean and doesn't affect the audio. My assumption is that the first is the layer change and the second a glitch in the transfer.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are nominally three soundtracks on this disc, but as far as I am concerned you can dispense with the third option which is the audio commentary track. I doubt I've heard a more irrelevant addition (although some may choose to disagree). The two main audio tracks are a Dolby Digital 5.1 track at a very decent 448 kilobits per second and one for the purists in Dolby Digital 2.0 at 192 kilobits per second. In contradiction to my usual style, I listened almost entirely to the disc in Dolby Digital 2.0 and not 5.1, although I sampled many of the tracks in 5.1 for comparison.

    To be honest, the stereo soundtrack sounded far superior to the 5.1 track, although recorded at a lower db level. The 5.1 track sounded vaguely hollow at times and I found that the fullness of the surround sound wasn't enough to compensate for the echoey effect, so I listened to the stereo mix which sounded much cleaner.

    There is hardly any dialogue and Phil Collins' singing might not be the most mellifluous but you'll probably either know the words to the songs or won't care. Occasionally his singing does look out of sync when he is juxtaposed with the giant Jumbotron screen in the background but I put this down to the miniscule delay in relaying the vision to the screen and gave this disc a clean bill of health in the sync department.

    The music is by Genesis (sic).

    The surround channels are heavily used but mostly for atmospherics, crowd noise and musical envelope. There isn't a lot of volume from the surrounds but they add nicely to the 5.1 mix.

    The subwoofer is in use during the concert but it doesn't get a real workout. No track particularly makes the .1 work hard and for the most part you'll hardly notice it.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Introduction

Scene Selection Animation

Audio Commentary

    In regards to the Audio Commentary, about ten minutes into it I worked out what was going on and I couldn't believe how superfluous it really was. The band members are obviously sitting in a studio watching a final cut of the video (from the sounds of it with the multi-camera vision also being shown) and generally chatting over the top of the concert. I suppose someone might find the odd irrelevant comment being thrown around entertaining but I quickly tired of it after 30 minutes.

Multiple Angles

Gallery

Interviews-Cast

Gallery-Photo

    Disc 2: With a running time of 2:00, this includes Thompson/Stuermer photos, Backstage and Concert stills (approx 18) to complete the collection. There are instrumental musical overlay to accompany the vision. All images are available for download from the Genesis Web Site.

Informational Subtitles

    This DVD does not appear to be available in Region 1.

    Genesis-The Way We Walk is a live-in-concert release that has all the characteristics of a great DVD: clarity of vision, decent, if not brilliant audio, multi-angles for that extra bonus and spread over two discs so none of the quality is lost. A definite must for all Genesis fans. Hopefully this sort of release will lead the way of the future for all music DVDs.

    A wonderful visual treat with only the background display causing any problems and they were minor.

    Although not as good as the video, the audio was technically spot-on with no major dramas except that it wasn't punchy enough for me, but that is more my personal preference than anything awry with the audio.

    The extras were as good as you'd normally find on a music DVD, although the inclusion of the audio commentary was a bit of a mystery to me. Decent, but not spectacular.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall