George Thorogood and the Destroyers-Live in '99 (1999) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation Interviews-Cast Notes-About The Band Gallery-Photo Discography Audio-Only Track-I Don't Trust Nobody Web Links
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	87:14
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Ken Botelho
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	George Thorogood Bill Blough Hank Carter Jeff Simon Jim Suhler
Case	Click
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

    George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers have been rockin' with their distinctive brand of blues-based rock for many years. Take lots of frenzied guitar work, throw in a good dose of songs about beer, women and more beer combined with a large dollop of humour and wrap it all up with a great tune and hook line and a hit song is all but assured. The band has generated a real cult following over nearly three decades, and deservedly so, as they just go out to have fun and generate a good time for themselves and their fans. A measure of their dedication came in 1981, when as part of their 50/50 tour, they played fifty concerts over fifty consecutive nights in all fifty states of the US. Songs like Born To Be Bad, Gear Jammer, You Talk Too Much, and movie soundtrack favourite Bad To The Bone all feature driving guitar licks, and plenty of good old fashioned humour.

    This show was recorded in 1999 at the Fox Theatre in St Louis, Missouri, and while it covers a good range of the well known hits of the band, there are some notable exceptions. I was quite disappointed not to hear Treat Her Right and Born To Be Bad, although the inclusion of One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer makes up for those omissions somewhat. George may be a little tubbier than I remember, he may not charge around the stage, and his guitar work (even by his own admission) never reaches any lofty heights, but it still gets the crowd rocking.

    The following tracks are presented in the eighty seven minute show.

Video

    From a cable television broadcast, this is quite a decent video transfer despite being NTSC formatted. Remember you will need a display device capable of displaying the NTSC picture, or a player that will convert the signal to PAL. Unlike many of the recent NTSC discs that I have seen, this one features a substantial red sticker on the cover stating that this disc is NTSC formatted. It is very difficult to miss.

    The transfer is presented in a full screen aspect ratio of 1.33:1. There is no 16x9 enhancement.

    Nice and sharp and with lots of detail, it would appear that this transfer has been captured on digital tape. There are no problems with shadow detail. Grain is basically non-existent and there is no low level noise. Overall, this is quite pleasing to view.

    The colours do suffer on occasions, though mostly as a result of being an NTSC disc. Variable at times, there are some bright grey overtones at times when a slightly darker image was expected. There are no problems with any oversaturation or posterization.

    There are no MPEG artefacts. Video artefacts are mostly invisible, and are certainly nothing to get excited over. All up, this is a reasonably clean transfer.

    Unfortunately, continuing a recent trend with concert releases, there are no subtitles available.

    This is a single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    While the video is above par, the audio suffers from some serious deficiencies, most notably being mastered at a very low volume. In fact this is mastered so low that I had to tweak the volume knob a full 25dB further than my normal review setting just to make it sound like a real concert. Those of you watching this with only the speakers in your television set be warned, as you may need to crank it up so far that you risk breaking something when you flick back to normal TV broadcast.

    There are two audio soundtracks on this disc, being Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 flavours respectively. For one of the few times in my reviewing history, I preferred the Dolby Digital 2.0 effort over the poorly handled Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. The 5.1 track has been mixed to take advantage of all six channels, with decent low end from the sub and almost constant surround channel use, but it is handled in such a manner that can only be described as clumsy. The lyrics are not at all prominent in the mix and sound overshadowed by the music. The separation across the channels seems just a little too obvious and exhibits none of the transparency that is so desired from music recordings. The Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack handles both of those areas much cleaner, with more precise vocals being the main difference.

    There are no audio sync problems.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Audio & Animation

Interviews-Cast

    No time code information is available for this interview with George Thorogood, which runs for approximately 8:25. Recorded just prior to the concert, the video is full screen, whilst audio is Dolby Digital 2.0 which exhibits some of the same inadequacies that are evident in the main concert track. The interviewer can barely be heard at times, though George's responses are mostly clear enough. Some editing has seen the vision skip around a little bit, though it flows reasonably smoothly.

Notes - About The Band

    Several pages of text that goes into some detail about the band and their origins.

Gallery-Photo

    Titled Scrapbook '99, this is a series of backstage photos that are displayed in sequence accompanied by the song Move It On Over. No timecode information is available, though it runs for approximately 2:30.

Discography

    A 1 page list of all the George Thorogood and The Destroyers albums.

Audio-Only Track

    Audio track for the song I Don't Trust Nobody, from the album Half a Man, Half a Boy. A static background is featured and the song plays for 5:04, though again, there is no timecode information.

Web Links

    I didn't actually investigate this extra, but if all it does is navigate you to www.gthorogood.com , I think I can type it into my browser quicker than the DVD-ROM content will take to load.

    Looks like the Region 1 disc is identical (not surprising since this is coded for all regions), and exhibits the same problem with the audio track as well as NTSC formatting. As a result there is no need to favour the imported disc.

   
    Fans of George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers will probably already own this disc as it has been available in Region 1 for some time. This disc is exactly the same as that one, complete with the audio problems. The concert itself is enjoyable, with a driving beat and heaps of guitar riffs to keep the neighbours on their toes.

    The video transfer is excellent, even for an NTSC formatted disc. The colours are a little variable but are more than adequate for the job.

    The audio is flawed, with the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack being particularly disappointing.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall