Once again, some of the performances were absolutely breathtaking in theirscope and musicianship, ranging from full-tilt, instrumental, prog jams, to lightpop, to classic rock, to country, to gospel- inspired ballads. The range is staggering. The inclusion of such live instruments as the cello, violin, mandolin, saxophone, and loads of great percussion, versus having these parts sampled on a keyboard, is what really sets this show apart. Many of the songs would have fit perfectly on a Spock's Beard, or 70s-era Kansas album, especially some of the instrumentals like the three "Overture" pieces, "Long Story" (which featured a guitar solo from Kerry Livgren on the album), and "The Storm BeforeThe Calm". Other songs are flat-out Christian- Contemporary, such as "I Am Willing", and " Oh, To Feel Him". Things bog down a bit towards the end, specifically the entire Part 5 section, when the Gospel numbers tend to dominate.

OK, now for the bad part. The audio and video were, how do you say in French?, Entre Nous? - No, No, that's that silly Rush song with the French name. More like...disappointing. OK, I don't know French. Yup, Morse did it to me again, putting out a great concert with crappy production. Alright, it's not THAT crappy, but only a mediocre Dolby 2.0 mix for Christ's sake!? This is 2004 Neal. I'll lend you some money towards a 5.1 mix on your next DVD, just give me a call buddy. The 2.0 mix wasn't very good either. The center speaker handled most of the output, and the bass was almost non-existent. Luckily, using just the straight stereo option on my amplifier provided a much meatier, and more satisfying sound overall. The picture had a few problems as well. Most obvious were the problems from the stage lighting. The lights just seemed to overwhelm the cameras most of the time causing the colors to look washed out. The skin tones of the musicians didn't look natural at all. The picture was not especially sharp either, and there were plenty of out of focus shots. On a good note, the camera work was excellent, so I guess that makes up for everything else.

Shit, I almost forgot. As good as I thought the "Testimony in its entirety" first set performance was, all two hours of it, the encore (or second set) was even better. It starts out with some backstage footage as the band is getting ready to head back out on stage. Portnoy asks Morse, as they are discussing songs to perform, "Waddaya think, can you handle Stranger?", referring to the Transatlantic epic "Stranger In Your Soul". Morse answers, "Yeah I can handle it!". Handle it they did my man--all thirty-something glorious minutes of it. This was the show closer, and in my opinion, it topped the performance on Transatlantic's Live In Europe video. The luxury of having real violin, cello, flute, and percussion put this performance over the top. Since practically everyone in the band could sing, the background and harmony vocals were exceptional as well. This song was preceded by the Spock's Beard epic, "The Light", from their first album, and before that they opened with the Transatlantic ballad, "We All Need Some Light". The electric violin and mandolin playing made this version also better than the original.