Search - Sepultura - Live in Sao Paulo on DVD

This is a punishing DVD! But with flaws...

David K. Barrett | 11/13/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I absolutely savaged the last Sepultura studio cd, Roorback, despite liking Derrick Green immensely. I still have issues with Roorback. At the time I said the band was done, but I still picked up "Live in Sao Paulo" on its first day of release. This DVD is in a word...punishing. The aurol assault is relentless. The performance and production is excellent.

The goods: The setlist and special guests make this DVD a treat. Every Sep song that I wanted to hear is played except for one (which I will discuss later). The special guests give magnificient performances as well. This truly is a special DVD and Soulfly will have to have their "A Game" if they plan to top this. Buy the DVD, seriously.

Also, the band is playing great as always. But I must tell the fans that Derrick Green is incredible, truly. Great presence, menacing stares, great front man. Its amazing that he was kinda an unknown before his current gig with the Seps.

The bad news: Occasionally the vocals get very unintelligible. And this negative factor affects the English language tunes just as badly as the Portugese tunes too. Also, why is "Desperate Cry" not on the CD and main DVD???? "Desperate Cry" is on the second "bonus" DVD, but I think that the tune would work well on the DVD/CD release proper. Finally, my DVD skipped while Derrick announced the song Sepulnation. I returned my DVD and my replacement disc skipped in the same place. Highly annoying. Anybody else have that problem with their DVD? SPV would not answer my emails.

The packaging is lacking. It will be possible to scratch your DVD if you are not careful.

So we have a 4 star, must buy DVD. I'd easily give 5 stars if the vocals held up better, there was no skip during Sepulnation, better packaging and if "Desperate Cry" was featured. In all, if you like Sepultura, and you like Derrick Green, buy this. Finally, there is an excellent surprise that the prior reviewer alluded to. I won't reveal the surprise, but its cool.

The future is with Derrick. I wait impatiently for Dante XXV. Finally, email me if you can help with Gene Machine/Don't Bother Me lyrics."

Stunning!

Antonio Palacios | Perú | 02/02/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Let's get something clear: Derrick Green is not Max Cavalera. Some people blame Green because he's not like Max. Of course he's not! He is another person who has a different register and entonation and has his own skills. Sepultura has a new vocalist in the same way Cannibal Corpse is now with the Corpsegrinder. And he's good, believe. Derrick is a gret vocalista and a perfect frontman for the band. This concert is Sao Paulo is proof of that.

The song selection is pretty good. The have mixed the new era songs with the calssic old songs from their first albums. They're all played with the same intensity and fierceness. You know, some bands are really terrible in concert... I don't know if it is because they try to make something different from the albums or beacuse they have had too much studio production and they cannot reproduce it in stage. Sepultura is not the case. They give the audience all they have and they sound great. I think the guest musicians the band has invited for this special ocassion ("Biotech is Godzilla" is a take-no-prissioner-attitude song with the presence of Gordo Joao) The only song I can complain is abouth the weird "Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos". I don't know whay they included it in the set. The rest of them are okey, especially "Escape to the void", "Propaganda" and "Arise".

The audio quality of this DVD is outstanding. You have the option to hear the concert in DTS sound wich I think is way better than the 5.1 Surround. The sound is fuller, richer and you can almost feel the atmosphere of the place. Drum section is the part most beneficied with this sound: Igor has the perfect stamina to keep going for hours and still play at tempo with the same intensity. The sound of the guitar is great too, it has a lot of distortion but it doesn't sound muddy. I really cannot distinguish and hear the bass lines but I realy don't care too much about that.

The packaging is cool: a slim transparent acrilic box. It contains the two discs but they're allocated in the same place. I think you have to be really carefull when handling the discs or you're gonna scracth'em.

Finally, if you like Sepultura, this is a must have DVD. If you're not, this is the perfect way to know more about this trash metal brazilian band and be part of the Sepulnation."

They can still put on a hell of a live show

F.U. | California | 11/28/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Since Max Cavelera left Sepultura, their albums have been so-so. This DVD should show all doubters that Derrick Green is a worthy monster to fill the shoes, at least in the live arena. The band's only weak points are when they allow too many guests onstage with them, it gets distracting, and they especially need to drop their horrible cover of Public Enemy's "Black Steel.." from the setlist, you can feel the audience isn't into it by their lack of real applause after. Otherwise, this is a bad ass concert film. The documentary bonus disc is pretty weak, but that's not important. Buy this and fall back in love with the mighty SEPULTURA!!"

A Strong Concert, A Strong DVD

Gunther Haagendazs | Up High in the Trees | 07/31/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I haven't been particularly favorable of the Sepultura albums with Derrick Green, usually rating them 2 or 3 stars, but they've always had a few great songs here and there. Upon seeing the track list for the Live in Sao Paulo CD and DVD sets, I was surprised to see so many Max era songs. I bought the CDs and DVDs for a cheap price and was not disappointed. Derrick is able to perform the Max Era songs well but the main problem with this concert is that he needs to learn to play guitar. This is a strong DVD Set that is well worth the 5 stars but even then it has its share of flaws. Several of the small problems I wrote of in my CD review apply to this review as well but because you can see everything going on, it makes up for it. Here are the flaws I noticed with the DVD version of the concert.

1. Other than Apes of God and Roorback, Derrick doesn't play guitar on any of the songs, leaving Andreas to do all the work. This takes away some elements from certain songs, most noticeably Escape to the Void where the beginning guitar solo is absent.
2. All the band members get enough camera time except for Paulo who I felt never really got enough.
3. On the DVD there is a small biography where there is one obvious typo, I forget what word it is. Also, you can not pause it as it scrolls by so if you are a slow reader, you are screwed.
4. For some reason, the Rapper for Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos comes on stage holding a strange white bag in one hand the entire time...
5. On Disc 2, there are 3 bonus songs. People have complained about those not being on Disc 1, but the obvious reason why is that they are from a different concert. It still would have been pretty sweet for them to play Desperate Cry at this concert.
6. The documentary while good, felt a little short, though it is very amusing to see Derrick stick his head inside of Igor's Bass drum and pretend to be Darth Vader. On the plus side, it helps you understand Derrick more and let's face it; it would be difficult for anyone to replace Max Cavalera in Sepultura so you still have to give Derrick props for trying if you don't like him
7. Unfortunately, a lot of us Americans do not speak Portuguese, including me. Andreas frequently introduces people and songs in Portuguese and Coffin Joe introduces the band for a minute and a half. My only complaint about this is that it would have been nice to have a subtitles option.

The reviewer David K. Barrett mentioned that the concert skips during Sepulnation. I don't really recall this happening but I personally don't care for that song so it doesn't matter to me.

So while it does have its handful of problems, the concert is excellent and the band displays their talent with ease. It's very enjoyable and the problems really aren't that big of a deal most of the time. I find it that this is one of the concert DVDs that I can watch over and over again. If you do not like Derrick Green in Sepultura at all, then chances are that will not change by watching this, so just avoid. If you are a causal fan of Sepultura with Derrick then by all means pick this up. If you are a big fan of Derrick in Sepultura, then why don't you have this by now? Hoped this review helped.
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