Search - Dark Tranquility: Live Damage on DVD

Live Damage

Sachin Kori | 02/14/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"this dvd includes a full concert (in poland), bootleg videos of dark tranquillity performing in germany, greece, and france, music videos for "monochromatic stains" and "therein," as well as an interview with mikael stanne (vocals), a band biography, photos of the poland show, a discography, and killer artwork.the poland show was performed on oct 7, 2002. the songs are: the wonders at your feet, the treason wall, hedon, white noise/black silence, haven, punish my heaven, monochromatic stains, undo control, indifferent suns, format c: for cortex, insanity's crescendo, hours passed in exile, the sun fired blanks, damage done, lethe, not built to last, therein, zodijackyl light, and final resistance.the sound is superb, as is the video quality. dt put on a great show. the only problems are that the audience, except for a few, is unfamiliar with dt and is pretty lethargic. they just stand there most of the time, sometimes trying to clap along, only to stop because of dt's frequent time and tempo changes. but you can tell that they like it. the other problem is that when stanne does clean vocals, like in "therein," the sound does not match the video. it's out of sync by a second or so. it'd be cool if they played some more songs from the gallery and mind's i, and something from skydancer and chaos & eternal night, but oh well. otherwise this portion of the dvd is awesome.the german show (performed nov 13, 2002) includes: white noise/black silence, haven, wonders at your feet, and final resistance. france (oct 20, 2002) and greece (nov 19, 2002) include: therein, zodijackyl light, final resistance, damage done, wonders at your feet, final resistance, punish my heaven, monochromatic stains, therein, haven, hedon, and white noise/black silence. those are not repeats, i.e., the titles that are listed twice are performed in different places. that's kind of one of the dvd's drawbacks. since all the shows were recorded from the same tour, there are multiple versions of each song. "therein" appears at least 4 times on the dvd!the german, french, and greek audiences are much more lively. most of the time you hear them singing along louder than mikael. the video quality is poor, and so is the sound, but that's what you should expect from bootlegs (and remember, the sound and video from the polish show are near perfect).the interviewer asks stupid questions (e.g. describe dt in 3 words), but mikael manages to give interesting and illuminating answers. one such answer includes a humorous account of what happened when dt was nominated for a grammy.this is the best music dvd i've ever bought. the show in poland alone is worth every penny, and should be in ever metalhead's collection. but this dvd has so much extra stuff. get it, you won't regret it."

Technical difficulties ruin it

Erik K. Dietrich | WI | 02/11/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"First off, the positives:

The setlist is GREAT, they play practically all their best songs up through Damage Done, and even go back repeatedly to "The Gallery" and "The Mind's I" in their setlist. Their playing is also amazing, and the sound on the dvd is quite excellent. It's also loaded with bonus features, with a couple of bootleg concerts in their entirety included along with an interview. Great content.

BUT:

As a musician, I can say that I find that this dvd is nearly unwatchable. It is entirely due to the unbearably bad presentation. The main problem is that the audio is horrifically unsynced with the video...every time the drummer is shown, he is playing well behind the audio. Whoever put this dvd together just plain DID NOT CARE. This will probably not bother some people, but it completely ruins it for me. It seems to get worse as it goes on, too...by the time it gets to "therein," the vocals are so far from stanne's mouth movements that it looks like they were trying to be FUNNY. It's just unbearably terrible...if you haven't noticed this problem, just try watching the chorus of "therein." It's unbelievable.

The only reason this isn't noticeable all the time is that the editing is so incredibly frenetic that you rarely get a chance to see what anyone is playing...it's very disorienting and sickening, and it's entirely probable that they chose to edit it like this instead of making a real attempt to have synced audio. It's really, truly awful and I believe that it makes this dvd's value decrease sharply. The picture is also extremely fuzzy and indistinct and pixellates regularly, probably partly due to the fact that smoke doesn't translate well to DVD and the stage is always hazy, and probably partly due to the fact that they crammed over 3 hours of material onto a single-sided dvd. However, it is still a problem, and the video on this dvd is a complete lose thanks to the bad picture and the unsync problem.

It sounds great, though, so playing it with the video off is always a good option. Great setlist, great sound...it's especially nice hearing "Punish My Heaven" and "Lethe" with their new instruments. The video, however, is so unbearable that I can't really recommend buying this dvd for more than about 10 dollars. If you think it won't bother you, then go ahead, but I really wish I'd been given this warning."

Nice sound, nice image quality, but

SantoMB | Bogota, Colombia | 12/16/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"It's not about the setlist or the disc layout...
I don't know if my eyes and ears lie to me, but video and sound are not coordinated, you can clearly hear a cymbal and then you watch anders hittin' it, and that happens throughout the gig. That's not right.

It's not like maiden's rock in rio where you really wish you were there!, the crowd is so cold and weak that I pity DT for givin' so much on-stage and getting nothing back from their fans."

Still worth buying

Sachin Kori | Clifton, Va United States | 10/23/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ok, I only gave this 4 stars because well, I wasnt too impressed with the music quality in the main show. It seems like they did not record this at any special concert, just a typical concert they would do on tour. (I understand the bootleg concerts, and I have no problem with the clips from those). The setlist was really good, and a lot of good songs were repeated later in the bootleg and bonus songs. There did not seem to be much stage presence, the musicians would headbang and move around, but just something seemed lacking. I still recommend buying this video though if you are a Dark Tranquillity fan, or even if you are like me and have your high moments of them. I still rank the Rock in Rio dvd as one of the best I've ever seen."