Simply Red - Live In London

Being at the forefront of their own style of contemporary music for way over a decade now and it is no wonder that they staged a Best of show in London just recently to promote all their latest and greatest hits. It's a pity we won't see something as cosy as this in Melbourne, let alone Australia, as the performance is exemplary.

Songs featured include:

• Sad Old Red
• Picture Book
• Mellow My Mind
• Air That I Breathe
• It's Only Love
• Never Never Love
• Broken Man
• Ghetto Girl
• Night Nurse
• So Beautiful
• Stars
• Come Get Me Angel
• Thrill Me
• Come To My Aid
• Infidelity
• To Be Free
• The Right Thing
• I Won't Feel Bad
• Red Box
• To Be With You
• If You Don't Know Me By Now
• Money's Too Tight (To Mention)
• Holding Back The Years
• Something Got Me Started
• Fairground

As you can see, the live show is chockers with songs but what you really want to know is what the dvd is like, right?

This is another pleasant transfer from Warner Vision and I feel it's one of their initial experimental transfers aswell as we are presented with their first 1.85:1 16x9 transfer of a live recording. This may sound fantastic to some of you but it becomes apparent that this is a pseudo 1.85:1 presentation of what was originally a full frame recording.

Basically, you take the recording, matte it to 1.85:1 and then upscale it to be suitable for a 16x9 presentation. You don't lose any detail BUT you don't gain any detail. In fact, watching it in full frame with the automatic pan and scan feature, the presentation looks a little soft.

That aside, as I mentioned above, it is another good transfer from Warner Vision. The stage where the action is held seems to comprise of a lot of reds in the background which render beautifully with the mpeg codec. All other aspects of the lighting have varying effects on the presentation but all come up trumps as Warner once again provide a high bit-rate presentation.

Their policy seems to work; if you've got enough space on a dual layered disc, make the most of it by increasing you bit-rate. Kudos.

We are presented with both a Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack and a Linear PCM Stereo soundtrack aswell as 2 sets of subtitles providing the lyrics to the songs and other textual information.

The DD 5.0 soundtrack is one you have to get used to as it is more of an enveloping soundtrack rather than a location based soundtrack meaning that vocals are not restricted to the front and ambient audience participation to the back but rather everything mixed all around you. If you sit too close to your rear speakers, you'll think Mick Hucknall is sitting with you rather than on the screen. It's different but it still works as the impression they are trying to get across is that being in this auditorium you'd hear the vocals coming out of all the speakers situated around the room.

The Linear PCM track on the other hand is more of what you are used to in live presentations so everyone is catered for here. An interesting soundtrack to say the least.

Keeping the entire presentation in the 16x9 domain are the included menus. Backed by some musical numbers which end abruptly as you choose the next menu item. As a suggestion, keep any menu music to the main screen and leave the others muted as it becomes a little annoying.

As a Simply Red fan myself, I really enjoyed the show and the dvd made it all the more enjoyable as I doubt a VHS could do such a performance justice. Hucknalls vocals are unique and worthy of his success for either playing a recorded CD or hearing him live gives you an exact interpretation of his singing ability. You have to admire his talent and then you'll enjoy their songs so much more.