Train-Midnight Moon (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio Biographies-Cast Interviews-Cast Discography Music Video-Drops Of Jupiter - Live Video Version
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	84:33 (Case: 130)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Marc Smerling
Studio Distributor	Sony Music	Starring	Patrick Monahan Rob Hotchkiss Jimmy Stafford Scott Underwood Charlie Colin
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$29.95	Music	Train

    Train's first big success was with the single Meet Virginia. It had minor chart success here in Australia, and featured Rebecca Gayheart in the role of Virginia for the music video. It was a traditional style guitar-rock song. Following that, however, Train largely disappeared from both the Australian consciousness and the airwaves. Given the guitar-rock heritage of Train, it is somewhat ironic that the single that launched them into the stratosphere - hitting number one not only here in Australia, but around the world, including the US - was the extremely Elton John-esque Drops Of Jupiter. Featuring an Elton John style piano line, the resemblance did not end there, as the man responsible for the orchestral score on Drops Of Jupiter was none other than Paul Buckmaster - who has scored numerous Elton John albums, including the recent Songs From The West Coast. If Drops Of Jupiter and Elton John's Levon are played back to back, excluding the different vocal styles, the songs could easily have come from the same album, despite being released almost 30 years apart.

    Having said all that, there are many worse things a band could do than copy the style of one of the most successful artists of all time. It could, however, be somewhat of a rude shock to people who buy the Drops Of Jupiter album that the remainder is fully in the normal Train style of guitar rock. In fact, no other track on the album features piano.

    As far as the concert is concerned, it presents all bar one song from Drops Of Jupiter, but only five songs from Train (the band's debut album). This is not a bad thing, however, as the songs on Drops Of Jupiter are generally more polished, and represent the band coming to know what a good pop-rock tune is. They perform with honesty and skill - there is no trickery here, just a rock group performing good, solid rock songs. They may not be at Counting Crows level yet, but if they keep working as hard as they obviously are, and keep improving, they may just get there yet.

Video

    Presented in the unusual aspect ratio of 1.49:1, the transfer is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is quite soft, looking a lot more like a video image than what DVD is capable of. There is also a high level of grain present, and although mostly restricted to the background it does become painfully obvious on occasion, such as at 6:47-6:50, and 81:04. Shadow detail is quite simply dismal. Anything that is not well lit completely disappears into the murk, and that includes the audience.

    The colours are also not very good. They have a slightly unnatural tone to them that makes the entire concert appear not quite real. This could well be to do with the stage lighting, but the overall effect is quite disappointing.

    The transfer fares a little better when it comes to artefacts. There are only a very few instances of pixelization, and these coincide with when the grain rises to high levels. There is almost no aliasing at all, with only a few very minor incidents, such as at 41:36 on Charlie's shirt, and at 79:33 on the strings of a guitar. The transfer is mostly free of film artefacts, although a few flecks appear on occasion, such as at 10:41.

    There are no subtitles on this disc, so singing along is restricted to fans only.

    This is a single layered disc, and therefore no layer change is encountered.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two audio tracks present on this disc, being a 48kHz 16 bit Linear PCM 2.0 track, and a 448 Kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 track. There is little difference between the two tracks, as the Dolby 5.1 track concentrates on preserving the stereo imaging, only using the surrounds for crowd ambience. The bass definition on the PCM track is slightly better, although the bass on both tracks is well controlled.

    Vocals were always clear and audible. The mixing was good enough, with a fair stereo separation, although early on it did have somewhat of a muted feel that sounded as if the band were playing in the next room. This clears up after the first couple of tracks, but is somewhat disconcerting while it lasts. The music levels were always appropriate, never drowning out the vocals, and on the 5.1 track the crowd noise was used quite sparingly, which is a nice change.

    There were no problems with audio sync during the transfer.

    The surround and subwoofer usage was quite restrained on the 5.1 track. The result is that the PCM track gives a slightly better concert experience, although those that really need to use the 5.1 track will not be too disadvantaged.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Bios and Interviews

• Patrick Monahan (5:45)
• Rob Hotchkiss (2:52)
• Jimmy Stafford (3:19)
• Scott Underwood (2:57)
• Charlie Colin (3:44)

Discography

Music Video - Drops Of Jupiter Live Video Version (4:51)

Booklet

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall