Marillion Marbles Concert DVD Giveaway - August 2005

Have you ever heard of Marillion?

  • Yes

    Votes: 19 39.6%
  • No

    Votes: 29 60.4%

  • Total voters
    48
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jthomp27

jthomp27

Audioholic Intern
(1) DTS, or high quality PCM soundtrack
(2) Song List (Content)
(3) Straightforward video editing - no gimmicks! I want to be able to see/hear what I would have if I was at the show
 
miketo

miketo

Audiophyte
I'm going to disagree with most posters here and say that audio quality is *not* the most important feature. The most important feature for a music DVD must be the performance. I don't care how well the audio is mixed, if the band is just "phoning it in," I may (may, mind you) watch the DVD once and then donate it to the local library.

I have a copy of Yes' "Live in Philadelphia 1979" and the audio quality is *terrible*. The video is not much better. Yet the performance catches fire with "I've Seen All Good People" and shows Yes at its Wakeman-era prog-rock peak. Despite the poor quality all around, I still get thrills watching the performances. Audiophiles will tell you they often prefer a scratchy monaural recording over a pristine, low-noise-floor recording precisely because the performance is without equal.

Marillion is one of the best-kept secrets in the States, which is sad news for Marillion's revenue stream. :) The music and musicianship are, of course, top-notch, and they have a reputation for delivering fantastic shows. I have listened to most of their music and enjoy the complete range of material. I expect the DVD will be brilliant, both for its performance and for its audio quality. Congrats to the band for putting this on DVD for its fans who can't quite scrape up the scratch to make it to the UK for a show. Looking forward to seeing it!

--Mike
 
A

audioentuiasta

Audiophyte
What are the fundamental elements of importance to an excellent concert DVD

The most important is audio
Then video quality
and finally extras

If it´s a concert a surround format to feel be inside and be part of the concert
 
R

randymoe

Enthusiast
Yeah marillion

Have not thought of them in quite awhile...
didn't know they were even around anymore...
Now I have to go dig out the vinyl I have and play it!!!

anyway, I love extras on DVD concerts...
always think that audio is first priority, as many concerts are remastered, so I just accept the video quality usually, unless real poor...

Love DVD concerts!!
 
9

9f9c7z

Banned
To be candid, I probably would not buy a DVD of an art-rock band’s live performance. What would be most important to me is a quality stereo (2-ch) mix, because I’m going to turn off the tube and just listen anyway. Might as well just put it on a cd.

I just don’t see ‘live’ and ‘art-rock’ going together on a DVD. Probably because I’ve seen the apex, and I have never seen anything recorded on DVD that comes close to capturing the live performances of Genesis’ ‘The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’, Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’**, any of the Yes tours with the phenomenal stages designed by Martin Dean. (His bro Roger did the artwork album covers for several Yes albums. You need to line up the albums and see the art in sequence. It tells a story.) For just shear power of the music on stage, Emerson Lake and Palmer or Camel were a tough acts. None of those shows has been faithfully presented in a video medium.

I really can’t remember all of the art-rock shows I have seen. One of the more memorable moments was when Renaissance opened in support of Rick Wakeman’s ‘King Henry’ tour. I saw it at Winterland in San Francisco. The venue was packed wall-to-wall, but when Annie Haslem started singing, every soul froze in-place, staring at the stage, mouths agape. Nobody moved (this was in the days before there was seating on the main floor). When Wakemen (ex-keyboardist for Yes), the headliner, was 15-mins into his show, half the people had already walked out. I left a few minutes later and there was just a scatter of people left there. He could not compete with the overwhelming power and beauty of Haslems’s vocals, and Renaissance’s performance. Shortly there after, an article appeared in Rolling Stone magazine (when it was a folded newspaper) about how Wakeman was blaming Renaissance for destroying his tour and he would never tour with them again, blah blah blah. Wakeman’s lesson: don’t tour with an opening act that is better than you.

I never saw Marillion live, only heard their albums. As much as I tried to see them all, there are other art-rock bands I know only from their vinyl; PFM, Druid, Hawkwind, Steve Hillage solo, Tai-Phong (a French/Vietnamese art-rock band) and Nektar to name a few. And I’ll toss Stomu Yamashta’s ‘Go’ Project into the art-rock mix, too. (Note: an Australian company recently secured the rights to release all three ‘Go’ albums on a double CD set. It is an amazing project, part art-rock, part jazz, part rock/soul, part electronic… Available thru Amazon.com) On the other hand, it is possible I did see some of them and (for whatever reason..humm) I can’t remember. I know I saw King Crimson open for Ten Years After, but the memory is a bit foggy for that one. Does Robert Fripp’s highly experimental Fripp-tronics (using a feedback loop between two reel2reel decks) count as art-rock?

** With 6.x multi-channel audio now available, there is absolutely no excuse for not releasing Pink Floyd’s DSOTM the way it was performed live, in 6-channel surround sound. For those that are not aware of it, there is also a movie that goes along with the music. That movie with 6-ch DTS surround would work! DSOTM was performed live, start to finish, without a break in the performance, and the movie followed the music (or the performance followed the movie) all the way thru. The encore was ‘Echoes’, about a 30-min piece. The opening set was 3 new songs, all three titled ‘Crazy’. One of the ‘Crazy’ songs, a 25-min+ piece, would be shortened, renamed, and appears on Floyd’s follow-up album as ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’. The other two ‘Crazy’ songs appear on ‘The Wall’.

Nope! In my mind, Marillion is an art-rock band and I will always know them as such. Unfortunately, the art-rock era is gone. It’s just not logistically possible or financially feasible to bring that era into the multi-channel audio and digital video realm of today. No matter how it’s done, it will come up short. You just had to be there.
 
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B

Blundaar

Audioholic
Interesting indeed....
What do I look for in a concert DVD?
1)Audio Quality- Too many tone-deaf gorillas out there that can't work a sound board, let alone handle the nuances of surround sound.
2)An engaging performance- Need I say more? Something that makes me feel like a poor bastard for not being there live in the first place.
3)Video- As long as it wasn't shot on 8mm, I can be very forgiving as long as the first two items are met. Still, good video is a good thing!
 
goodman

goodman

Full Audioholic
1. Talent
2. Audio quality
3. Video Quality
 
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N

nm2285

Senior Audioholic
I think the surround mix is by far the most important part. I'm a big fan of mixes with the band on stage in front of you and echoes/crowd as ambient in the surrounds. I'm not a fan of instruments surrounding you. In DVD audio thats more acceptable since you're not actually watching a concert.

Know what else would be cool? A mix that changed the position of the stage and audience to accompany the camera movement in the video portion.
 
E

ericb

Audioholic Intern
audio first

I always put audio first. but video is also important. But if I had to chose, I'm watchin a concert, I want it to sound good b4 looking good. The video is a bonus IMO.
 
Takeereasy

Takeereasy

Audioholic General
For myself audio is the only thing that really matters. I will never watch the extras, and one of my favourite things to do is lay out on the couch, turn on the amp and DVD player, and let an entire concert play out with my eyes closed. The first thing I look for to determine audio quality is whether or not the DVD has DTS encoding. I know that DTS is no guarantee of audio excellence but IMO it is a good indicator. One of my favourite albums to do the above mentioned pastime with is HFO by the Eagles. I know it's probably boring to many of you out there but that's how I relax after a hard or stressful day.
 
L

ljbrun

Enthusiast
gene said:
What are the fundamental elements of importance to an excellent concert DVD (ie. video quality, audio quality, extras, interviews, etc)?
Assuming it's material that I like, it's audio quality first, video second. The other stuff, I never see unless I hit the wrong button.
 
S

Shaftoe

Enthusiast
gene said:
What are the fundamental elements of importance to an excellent concert DVD (ie. video quality, audio quality, extras, interviews, etc)?
I too have not heard of Marillion, but I am now very intersted.

For me the most important elements of a concert DVD are audio quality and video quality. Of course (for me anyway) audio quality is more important, but video quality is a very close second. A poorly shot performance doesn't do a very good job of capturing the atmosphere the band, venue and crowd creates. Extras and interviews are fun, but not at all necessary for me to buy and enjoy a concert DVD.
 
Pyrrho

Pyrrho

Audioholic Ninja
Audio quality is most important by far, followed by video quality (which includes having interesting camera work, which is rare). Interviews and other extras are nice, but not very important to me.
 
O

OliverB

Audioholic Intern
Have I heard of Marillion? Oh, yeah! Used to be one of my favorite bands for quite a while, though I have not listened or followed them in years. Still love to hear some of the old songs though, bring back great memories :D

As for a concert DVD and it's features:

First and foremost for me is the performance and it's place in history. I'd rate a Jimi Hendrix concert filmed in some club in London in b&w on a 8mm camera with badly synched audio from a 6th generation tape copy higher than a 20 camera dolby surround recording of - well - what ever your favorite musician or band might be.

But if it's a concert from recent years:

Quality of the show
Audience shots
NO in between songs interviews or other breaks of any kind
Multiple camera angles
No digital "psychedelic" crap effects
Surround sound with optional stereo
Some fun backstage footage or footage of setting up the stage with interviews of the people that make it all happen.
Interviews with the musicians are always fun too, though I'd suggest to many of them to de-inflate their egos first ;-)
Some footage from an old show (filmed on 8mm b&w with bad audio...) is always fun with older bands.
I can live for ever without anything slideshows of "rare" photos or stuff to read. If I want that, I go online.
Oh, and NO easter eggs. If you want to put something on a DVD, don't hide it or just keep it. I'm tired of having to keep notes with "instructions" in one too many DVDs. Easter eggs never were really all that funny and wore out their welcome by #3 or so~~~

:))liver
 
L

lubmar

Enthusiast
I know the band well from the "Fish vocal" times.
Most important in concert DVD is the sound quality in 5.1 and 2.0 format,
also important the video quality ,
nice to have is: the DTS format, iterviews / backstage / documentary footage ...
 
J

jasoncorrie

Audioholic Intern
Never heard of them, but would not mind winning their DVD!
 
K

kingtut

Junior Audioholic
All of these qualities (video quality, audio quality, extras, interviews) are essential to a top notch DVD Concert.
 
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