Dokken-One Live Night (1995) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Backstage Pass DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	74:27 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Tom Strickfaden
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Don Dokken George Lynch Jeff Pilson Mick Brown
Case	Click
RPI	$34.95	Music	Dokken

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.33:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    A new label meant a new record and the band produced the classic Tooth and Nail (1984) which features some of the group's most memorable work, including: Just Got Lucky and one of their biggest hits, the soulful Alone Again.  This time, pure rock fans in the states took notice and the band started to receive a fair amount of airplay. The climate was right for their sound with the likes of Ratt, Quiet Riot, Def Leppard and Motley Crue all starting to influence the direction of popular music with the way paved by trailblazers Kiss in the late 70s. Soon teased hair and spandex was the norm, and for the most part expected. Could you have imagined a heavy metal band in the early to mid 80s with short hair? Blasphemy!  But while the style and image was a big part of the marketing and promotion of the bands of the era (including Dokken), the one thing that would serve the band well was quality songwriting. This tradition was continued with the band's next album, Under Lock and Key (1985) which featured one of their most popular songs (and this reviewer's favourite) It's Not Love which follows the style of loud, fast, fun summer party rock. An absolutely fantastic track and one that gained the band heavy airplay on the ever more influential MTV.

    In 1987 the band released their 4th album, Back for the Attack (1987) which would be ultimately the last hurrah for the band's career as a headline act for the pure rocking 80s. The main track from the album was the title song for the third Freddy Krueger film Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors (1987). The song Dream Warriors would end up being the last major hit for the band. After the release of their live album Beast from the East (1988), the band would call it quits with major creative and personal differences between guitarist George Lynch and founder Don Dokken. While the former band members pursued other projects, Don Dokken continued to create and record music under his own name rather that the band name Dokken due to a legal wrangle between himself and Lynch.

    In 1995, the band reformed with the intention of continuing with a recording and touring routine. This DVD is a record of that time and a document of a band that we are likely never to see together again. One Live Night is an Unplugged style staging with the band in an intimate venue and in sit-down mode as opposed to the legs-astance, pure rocker style. And can they play!  It's in this type of venue and staging that a band's strengths and weaknesses come to the fore. Gladly, we have much more strength than weakness here with some fantastic performances from a very versatile group. All the Dokken standbys are here including Just Got Lucky, Into the Fire, Alone Again and of course the finale, It's Not Love. Do these songs work in the semi-acoustic Unplugged style? Yes!  These guys still rock and the songsmanship and energy seem undiminished. (This reviewer had the delight of seeing his 20 month old son dancing and believe it or not "headbanging" along to the music while reviewing this title, especially It's Not Love. Great taste, my boy.)  All the classic tracks are here along with a couple of new ones from the band's 1995 album Dysfunctional. Also included is the Beatles classic Nowhere Man, which is handled well, but stands a bit oddly from the rest of the material on offer. Still, it is a testament to the diversity and musicianship of the band.

    Now, several years on since the recording of this live set and the band have once again called it quits. Irreconcilable differences between Don Dokken and George Lynch again have driven the band members apart, and this time Jeff Pilson (who can be seen as the bassist for Steel Dragon in the 2001 film Rock Star) has gone his own way, too. Still, Don Dokken continues to keep his dream alive and still records albums to this day with a new line-up and only Dokken veteran "Wild" Mick Brown still along for the ride.

    For any Dokken fan, this is probably the best document to remember the band by. We have some interesting interviews and insights on the workings and inspiration of the band along with explanations on what happened in the time between 1988 and 1995. For the pure rocker who remembers this band's contribution to the music of the 80s, this DVD is indeed for you.

Video

    This title is presented its original full frame aspect ratio and as such, there is no 16x9 enhancement. This disc is not region code restricted and is encoded in NTSC. Therefore, you should make sure that your equipment is NTSC compatible before purchasing this title.

    There is a terrible lack of sharpness with this title. So much of the image is affected by a myriad of video transfer flaws that for several reasons sharpness is severely lacking (see 2:05, 5:40 and 10:48). At times the quality of the video on offer is so bad that I did indeed wonder if this DVD was mastered off a VHS copy. It is really that bad. Shadow detail is almost nonexistent with this title and while this feature is filmed in a darkened environment, there is still no excuse for the poor quality of what we have presented here as can be seen at 2:26. Low level noise is a real problem with this title and is visible throughout with a very noisy background visible at almost all times.

    Colour use during this feature is far from natural or accurate. While the lighting used on the stage and its occupants is designed to exaggerate and accent, this disc fails to portray the image accurately with a colour scheme that seems too overpowering to be correct. There is quite a bit of colour bleeding visible during this feature which can be seen at 2:45, 3:14, 4:19 and 33:02. This in turn contrasts to the colour as seen during the interview portions of the title where the colours seem to be rather muted and drab. This could be intended, but with the image presented in such a poor fashion we will probably never know.

    There are a fair amount of pixelization and tapestry effect to be seen during this feature such as at 0:50, 12:09, and 48:35. Chroma noise is also a real problem with this title as seen at 7:03, 8:15 and 9:24. Even convicted serial pest edge enhancement gets a guernsey and is visible at 22:40. There are several analogue tape tracking errors visible during the feature with an early one at 0:14 (this is when I started to think that this disc may have problems and within five minutes I knew it had them big-time), a quite large one at 31:34 and one at 49:20. Aliasing raises its ugly head at 3:33 on the guitar strings and at 14:57 on the set and stage. There are a couple of times during the feature where the image jitters and seems to jump back just a fraction of a second as can be seen at 10:27. We have some very noisy video which suffers from almost every possible artefact that is seen at 0:22 and at the very end during the credits at 73:38 where chroma noise, tapestry effect, colour bleeding and low level noise seem to come together at once.

    There are no subtitles available on this disc.

    This is a single layered disc and as such, a layer change is not an issue.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are 2 audio tracks available on this DVD, being an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack.

    As one would hope for in the case of a music DVD, the dialogue quality (vocals) are quite good with the spoken word easily understood and the sung lyrics quite understandable (age dependent).

    There seemed to be a slight problem with audio sync, such as at 9:52, where the sung lyrics don't seem to quite match the lip movements of the singer. They also seem just slightly out of sync at other portions during the feature, but not to such an extent as to be a major issue.

    The musical content is quite listenable and clean with an effective Dolby Digital 5.1 mix placing the viewer squarely in the audience and no gimmicks or instruments coming from strange and impossible directions. Instead, we are presented with a very natural soundstage with the right amount of ambience and atmosphere as would have been experienced during the concert. Considering the audio bitrate used (384 kbps), the sound is still fairly dynamic and listenable and whilst nowhere near the league of Eagles:  Hell Freezes Over (1998), this is a very reasonable audio record of this band and their musicianship (I did say audio as the video content is absolutely sub-par).

    The rear effect channels do their job in giving out the right amount of room reverberation and atmosphere. Don't use any DSP effects on your amplifier during the playback of this title as none are needed. The original has all the required venue ambience.

    The subwoofer gets a good workout with this title while not being overused. There is much low level frequency audio present on this title and the subwoofer serves the recording well with its restrained contribution being in total harmony with the rest of the channels.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Extras

Menu

• Play Video
• Chapter Index
• Audio Set-Up
• Backstage Pass
• DVD Credits

    The Chapter Index Menus are basically the song list as printed on the back of the disc's box. This list is spread over two pages with the first page covering all the songs up to Just Got Lucky. This full frame menu is styled the same as the Main Menu with the options on the left and video on the right. The audio and vision for this menu is It's Not Love which is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded. The audio and vision loops for 40 seconds and will do so endlessly until a selection is made.

    The second page of the Chapter Index menu covers the songs from I Will Remember until the end featurette. The style is the same as previous menus. Audio for this menu is the song Tooth and Nail which, as the others are, is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded.

    The Audio Set-Up menu offers you the choice of:

• 5.1 Surround Sound
• Stereo

Backstage Pass - Featurette:  6:03

DVD Credits

    The video is appalling with almost every imaginable artefact on the screen throughout. Imagine not, for here it is, and it is not pretty.

    The audio is reasonable and gives the right amount of feel for a live performance.

    The extras are light with only a short featurette on offer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall