Andrew Lloyd Webber-Royal Albert Hall Celebration (1998)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1998
Running Time	128:05 (Case: 126)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (72:14)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	David Mallet
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Tina Arena Michael Ball Antonio Banderas Boyzone Sarah Brightman Glenn Close Julian Lloyd Webber Marcus Lovett Lottie Mayor Dennis O'Neill Donny Osmond Elaine Paige Ray Shell
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$36.95	Music	Andrew Lloyd Webber

    Recent visitors to this planet who may not have heard of Andrew (rest assured most inhabitants of Earth will have attended one of his musicals or at least have heard of his name) will be interested to know that Andrew is the composer of some of the most popular musicals of recent times, including:

• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
• Jesus Christ Superstar
• Cats
• Evita
• Variations
• Starlight Express
• The Phantom of the Opera
• Aspects of Love
• Sunset Boulevard
• Whistle Down the Wind

    The concert features highlights from Andrew's musicals (mentioned above) performed by various artists including our very own Tina Arena, Michael Ball, Antonio Banderas, Boyzone, Sarah Brightman, Glenn Close, Julian Lloyd Webber, Marcus Lovett, Lottie Mayor, Dennis O'Neill, Donny Osmond, Elaine Paige, Ray Shell, Kiri Te Kanawa, and Bonnie Tyler.

    The song list for the concert is:
 

    I was expecting (and even looking forward to) performances by the likes of Sarah Brightman, Michael Ball, and Elaine Page - after all, these are artists associated with Andrew and in some cases have been made famous by their stage performances of the songs. However, I must admit I was surprised by the inclusion of artists such as Tina Arena, Donny Osmond, Boyzone and Bonnie Tyler. However, everyone gave really credible and good performances.

    I don't know some of the artists featured here, but my vote for the Coolest Name for an Artist I Have Never Heard Of Before is Ben De'ath - especially as the name is attached to a boy with the sweetest voice and the most angelic face yet.

    The weakest link is probably Antonio Banderas - despite his devastatingly handsome good looks and his ability to carry off his tune, his voice is not as powerful or compelling as the others. Noticeably absent from the concert was "Mr. Phantom" himself Michael Crawford.

    The highlight for me was Glenn Close - even though I vaguely knew she had appeared on Broadway I never suspected her to be this good - she was awesome in her performances of selections from Sunset Boulevard.

    All in all, this is a must-have concert if you are a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Even if you can't stand the man, I would still recommend that you at least have a look.

Video

    The video is marred by quite frequent occurrences of colour and luminance smearing, which I suspect is present in the video master. This smearing looks similar to edge enhancement haloing during Tina Arena's appearance in Chapter 2 but on closer inspection I realized that it is actually the luminance bleeding of Tina's profile into the background. This artefact is particularly noticeable in the smearing of Donny Osmond's white shirt and also the blue haze surrounding Julian Lloyd Webber. Fortunately, the artefact settles down in the latter half of the concert to nothing more than a minor annoyance.

    Other than the above artefact, the transfer is quite clean and there is very little evidence of MPEG artefacts or video noise.

    This is a single sided dual layered disc (RSDL). The layer change occurs just at the end of Chapter 19 at 72:14. This is a very well-placed layer change (particularly for a concert) since I didn't even notice the layer change on first viewing and I had to go specifically hunting to find it.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    I was initially quite impressed by the enveloping ambience of the opening of the concert (Chapter 2 start until the appearance of Tina Arena - 1:06-2:10). The sounds of various instruments seem to be nicely spread across all speakers. However, the rest of the concert is more conventional with the surround speakers mainly used for ambience and I suspect this is actually a stereo track remixed for surround rather than a true surround track.

    The Dolby Digital 2.0 track is mastered at a lower level compared to the 5.1 track (about 6 dB lower) but surprisingly sounds nearly as good as the 5.1 track and has a nice rich sound compared to most Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks which sound tinny.

    The audio track does not have a strong low frequency component so the subwoofer is very rarely used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall