The BD version of Live At River Plate features three outstanding audio mixes; LPCM 2.0 Stereo, LPCM 5.1 Surround, and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. The bass is booming and every instrument is clear and distinct in the mix, with the guitars sounding like you are standing right in front of the Young brother's amps. Just the right amount of crowd noise and live ambience is included to make you feel like you are in the front row at the show. Although the video was filmed in 1080p HD, some of the images are not as reference-quality sharp as some of the other BDs I have seen. That is not to say that this BD does not look great overall, but the picture can be on the soft side at times, probably due to the killer light show that was blaring down on the cameras all night.
Before picking up this BD, I had read a lot of negative reviews vilifying the camera work for it's split-second camera-angle changes and excessive crowd shots, so I was a bit apprehensive going in. The good part is, it's not quit as bad as some people made it out to be; the bad part is, it's almost as bad as some people made it out to be. Acclaimed music video director David Mallet was at the helm for this one, and although he has done a fantastic job on several other concert DVDs that I own, he perhaps got a bit carried away with trying to capture the energy of the crowd and the excitement of the show, instead of just letting the performance speak for itself. Literally every other shot was of the crowd, and the cuts usually came every few seconds. I would have been much happier if he had just focused on that magnificent shot from the back of the arena that framed the entire stage.
One last thing to nitpick about. The concert-intro segment was nearly ruined by the director's haphazard editing that cut the animated video down from almost three minutes to about one, while cutting back and forth every two seconds to other shots in the stadium. For the viewer to properly experience what it was like to see this intro segment live, he should have let the whole thing play while showing the entire stage. What's an extra two minutes?
Article comments
1 - Shaleem Hosein
I saw this tour at our football stadium and this video more than captures the excitement. It's superb and awesome on Blu-ray.