Three Dog Night-Live in Concert (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Gallery-Photo
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	84:57
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (44:01)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Sandra Harris
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Cory Wells Danny Hutton Jimmy Greenspoon Michael Allsup Paul Kingery Pat Bautz
Case	Click
RPI	$39.95	Music	Three Dog Night

    There are certain songs that are continuous fixtures on FM radio playlists. Songs that you often know every word to but don't know the name of or who sings it. Such is the case with Joy To The World by Three Dog Night. You know the songs, Jeremiah was a bullfrog...da...da...da, but to instantly recognise who the band is or when it was released is another matter. Before I'd seen Forrest Gump, I really did think this song was called Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog!

    Three Dog Night were rather successful in the late 1960s and early 70s. If you believe their website (naturally enough located at www.threedognight.com), between 1969-1974 they outsold every other band or artist in record sales and concert tickets in the USA. They had twenty-one consecutive Top 40 hits, eleven Top 10s, seven number ones, seven million-selling singles and twelve straight gold albums. By late 1975, they had sold nearly 50 million records. Seems they had their success singing songs written by others, with the end credits of this disc highlighting just who contributed to their success, with names such as Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman penning hits for the lads.

    This concert was recorded at the Renaissance Centre in Nashville, Tennessee. The band features original members Cory Wells and Danny Hutton belting out the numbers, helped out by the Tennessee Symphony Orchestra. I guess the setup is a little like The Eagles' Hell Freezes Over, it's just that most of the songs aren't as recognisable. There are brief interview grabs between several of the songs, where Wells and Hutton reminisce on all matter of subjects. The performance is tight, slick and professional. The guys know their business and certainly give the crowd (who consist mostly of aging baby boomers) exactly what they want. Sure there is significant nostalgia value here and the band are really living on past glories, but that's what the audience want and they're the ones paying!

    The following tracks get a run in the eighty five minute show;

Video

    Image Entertainment rarely churn out a bad transfer, and this is no exception. Presented full screen 1.33:1, it is obviously lacking any 16x9 enhancement.

    This is a very sharp and detailed transfer, with crisp and perfectly focused images. Shadow detail is never compromised. Grain is barely perceptible and there is no low level noise.

    Colours are solid, with even saturation and other than a couple of brief instances where the intense coloured light gets the better of it, there are no problems with posterization or bleeding. Blacks are solid and skin tones perfectly natural. All in all, this is a pretty decent effort.

    There are no MPEG artefacts. Aliasing pops up several times but is so minor and trivial that I'm not even going to bother singling out the offending spots. Suffice it to say that it is on the usual culprits such as guitar/violin strings and the microphones. There are no video artefacts of any other sort.

    There are no subtitles available, which is a shame and this is certainly one area where I personally would like to see some improvement in future releases.

    This is a dual layered disc, with RSDL formatting. The layer change is at 44:01 and is quite noticeable. It would probably have had a lesser effect had it been about three seconds earlier, when the moon was in full shot.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio on offer is excellent. A rather impressive DTS soundtrack is accompanied by Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks. I listened to both 5.1 tracks and only sampled the Dolby Digital 2.0 track to verify its presence. Both 5.1 tracks offer clear separation of instruments, with the bulk of the vocals from the centre channel. Bass response is similar for both, with a real highlight being the orchestral double bass rumbling at 26:30-27:00. Both tracks are really very similar and I cannot put an argument forward to favour either.

    The lyrics are clear and well defined, with no audio sync problems. Likewise for the brief interview segments interspersed throughout the concert.

    There is lots and lots of surround channel use, right from the opening chords. It basically doesn't let up for the whole show, providing a nice enveloping feel. It is mainly audience response, but the odd bit of ambient instrument carries over to the rear channels.

   The subwoofer is integrated into the overall soundtrack well, and despite being used regularly throughout is not overly noticed.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu Animation & Audio

Gallery-Photo

    Some 20 photos, remarkably few of them with the actual band in shot. Most seem to be of the empty Renaissance Centre before the audience and band arrived, making this a very strange inclusion. They play automatically and last for about 2 minutes.

    From the information I can gather, the Region 1 disc is exactly the same as the Region 4 disc.

    I can say that I did enjoy this more than I thought I would, and even though these guys are really qualifying for "Let's cash in while we can still milk the nostalgia value" status, they know their craft, their limitations and put on a fine performance. Fans will lap it up, as the quality is excellent.

    The video is excellent with virtually no problems.

    The audio is superb, with the dts track being a definite highlight.

    The extras are minimal, almost to the point of being non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall