The Revelators-'Floating Bridge': Live at The Basement (2001)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Music	Featurette-Documentary Featurette-Oh Darlin' Featurette-Turn Me On Music Video-What Does It Take To Win Your Love
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	79:08 (Case: 95)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Kyle Crossing Ross Wood
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	The Revelators
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$39.95	Music	The Revelators

    The Revelators is a band that actually started in the late eighties when Joe Camilleri and two of his friends James Black and Joe Creighton got together on stage as "The Delta Revelators." They did a number of live gigs with Peter Luscombe on drums and Jeff Burstin on guitar before releasing an album in 1991 (Amazing Stories). This album featured Joe singing mainly covers of classic rock songs by Garland Jefferies, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and others. They kind of then went their separate ways but got back together to release a second album in March 2000 (The Adventures of the Amazing Revelators). The second album also covers such classics as Turn Me On (Nina Simone), Gravel Road (Nick Lowe) and Unbreakable Chain (Daniel Lanois), plus of course more Van Morrison and some Joe Camilleri originals.

    Joe Camilleri of course has been a music performer since the 1970s with bands like Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons and The Black Sorrows. He has also appeared as a session player on other albums.

    The programme on this DVD, a concert entitled Floating Bridge (named after one of the songs in the playlist), was recorded at The Basement night club and released as part of the "Live at the Basement" DVD series. It was also broadcast on ABC TV at 10.40PM on 13 December 2001. The performances include a song from the first album (Louisiana Blues), some songs from the second (Bulbs, Beside You, Cypress Grove Blues, Gravel Road) plus some new covers - including material taken from "fake" books of songs where Joe has never even heard the originals. Regardless of the source of the material, The Revelators mold and arrange the songs into their own unique sound.

    The band line-up for this concert is:

• Joe Camilleri - vocals, guitar, saxophone
• James Black - keyboard, guitar, vocals
• Joe Creighton - bass, vocals
• Pete Luscombe - drums
• Claude Carranza - guitar, vocals

    I found the first song (Chosen Ones) to be enchanting, and it sets the tone for the rest of the concert. James Black plays a mean set of keyboards (a Hammond XK-2 portable organ and a Technics digital piano) and Joe plays the guitar. Beside You features Joe on the saxophone and represents a bit of a "torch song" (heh heh) for Joe Cerighton as he takes the lead vocals role. I was surprised to see James Black take up a guitar in Louisiana Blues. Turn On Your Love Light features all band members joining in the singing as well as Joe doing the band member introductions. Finally, the concert closes with an oldie but goodie - Ruler Of My Heart.

Video

    The concert is presented in a full frame (1.33:1) aspect ratio, except for the 1 minute long opening credits which appear to be in 1.66:1 and authored in a separate DVD title from the concert proper.

    This is a very pleasing transfer, with high colour levels, very good black levels and generally containing high levels of detail, which is even more impressive given the cramped and dimly lit conditions of the venue. The performance seems to have been captured directly onto video as I noticed video glitches every now and then (though not to the level of causing annoyance).

    The video appears to be digitally enhanced, as the colour saturation seem slightly over-exaggerated and the black levels seem a little bit too good. There is a slight to moderate amount of edge enhancement leading to some ringing, and the general absence of low level CCD video noise in the background may have been due to enhancement as well, as you can occasionally spot low level noise around background objects.

    I also noticed minor instances of aliasing every now and then, particularly noticeable looking at guitar strings.

    There are no subtitle tracks on this single layered single sided disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one audio track on this disc: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kb/s).

    In general, I found the audio quality to be very good, and particularly commendable given that this is locally (ie. Australian) recorded, mastered, and encoded. The sound is rather edgy and "live", but that's due to the venue (although the slight harshness introduced by the Dolby Digital encoding process probably doesn't help). The soundstage is quite convincing - I could almost believe I had been magically transported to the venue itself.

    The 5.1 audio mix appears to be a discrete mix rather than enhanced from a stereo track, as I can hear not only decorrelated audience clapping across all speakers but also low level audience dialogue coming from the rear speakers.

    The detail in the audio track is quite amazing - during the beginning of the track when Joe is introducing the Cypress Grove Blues song, he mentions that he's done a fairly drastic rearrangement of Skip James's song and he hopes Skip doesn't mind, and since Skip is dead, that he doesn't "turn over." Right after that statement I can hear a very low level voice saying "... or turn up." :-)

    Audio synchronisation appears to be pretty spot on.

    The subwoofer track has been utilised to provide a subtle, but effective low extension to the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Three of the extras (the documentary and two bonus songs) are actually part of 1 DVD title (the songs are actually embedded inside the documentary) broken into three chapters. The fourth extra is in a title of its own, so I guess if I was being pedantic there are only two extras instead of four on this disc.

Menu

    The menus are full frame and static.

Featurette - Documentary, including Oh Darlin' and Turn Me On (acoustic performance) (16:46)

    This features mainly an edited interview with Joe Camilleri, shot outside the airport, inside a van on the way to the studio, at the studio and "on air" in the Basement studios. It is presented in full screen and Dolby Digital 2.0. Joe talks a little bit about his career. In the middle of the documentary is a complete performance of Oh Darlin' (this seems like it was shot as part of the concert, but edited out of the programme) as well an "on air" version of Turn Me On.

Music Video - What Does It Take To Win Your Love (3:52)

    This is a music video clip, shot in "artistic" black and white (with an occasional splash of colour). It is presented in widescreen letterboxed and Dolby Digital 2.0.

    This title is currently only released in Region 4, although it is not region encoded.

    The Revelators 'Floating Bridge': Live At The Basement (featuring Joe Camilleri on saxophone, guitar and lead vocals) may be nothing more than a DVD of a glorified pub band, but nonetheless is a very decent and listenable DVD. Captured live at the Basement night club, the video and audio transfers are very good. The disc includes a documentary, plus bonus music videos.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall