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  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
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  • Discography - Selected
Glen Campbell - Live in Concert
Umbrella Entertainment/AV Channel . R4 . COLOR . 53 mins . E . PAL

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For reasons known only to myself and one other, several years ago I bought a Glen Campbell best of album on vinyl and used to play two songs which happily lay beside each other on the listing. The first was a song I’d seen R.E.M. perform in a film made during their Monster tour years ago that was written by Jimmy Webb. This song was Wichita Lineman. The other was He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother (made famous by The Hollies).

Now, I’m not a fan of country music, but somehow these two songs spoke (or sung) to me, and I kinda got into them. But time went on and the album disappeared with the girl I listened to them with. For years I went without Glen Campbell singing those tracks in my head...

Then one day, when these events were but a dusty memory gracing the clutter of my mental attic, I saw this DVD up for review here at DVDnet. The memories came flying back in a cloud of unholy dust and I cheerfully claimed the disc for review.

Sigh.

Mr. Campbell does sing Wichita Lineman here, but he knows they are shooting during this 1981 performance and his floorshow is, well, ordinary to say the least. While there’s a large selection of his songs dredged up for our listening delectation, there’s just not a lot else to appeal visually. The stage is small, like shoebox sized, with the musicians in his largish ensemble band practically rubbing nylon sleeved elbows. He does a lot of that annoying ‘thank you’ in between lines of songs whenever the crowd even hints at clapping, or just makes amusing anecdotes, cramming in words wherever they’ll fit.

The playlist:

  • Rhinestone Cowboy
  • Gentle On My Mind
  • Wichita Lineman
  • Galveston
  • Country Boy
  • By the Time I Get to Phoenix
  • Two Down and On My Way to Heartache Number 3
  • Please Come to Boston
  • The Trials and Tribulations of Going From a Man to a Boy
  • Couldn’t Stand the Pain
  • Blue Grass
  • Milk Cow Blues
  • I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
  • Southern Nights
  • Amazing Grace
  • Try a Little Kindness
  • Mull of Kintyre

I’m sorry to say, but Mr. Campbell just didn’t cut it for me. Sure he’s got a great voice, but for anyone who doesn’t enjoy the twanging goodness of country music performed by a ragged bunch of good ol’ boys, this is most definitely not for you. And I mean Pearl Jam Not For You.

  Video
  Audio
  Extras
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The picture has been dragged straight from a video master and so we get all manner of soft-edges and just off colours. In this they are washed out looking and with the tiniest hint of green beyond the borders. Picture quality looks very TV with the usual sort of decay a video shot in 1981 will look. No real attention to the picture has been granted here, but the music on the other hand is where the disc does do some shining.

While the subwoofer snoozes gently, the surrounds do carry a little of the crowd hum and the music, but generally they don’t do a great deal. Sometimes the music even manages to drown out the vocals, which doesn’t seem right on a DVD about a vocalist. This is particularly evident during the enormously titled track The Trials and Tribulations of Going From a Man to a Boy.

The show has been edited so that the useless banter between songs is effectively excised, but this does make the crowd sound like a laugh track or applause track, unfortunately. Oh well. The song Milk Cow Blues features some hefty harmonica work which squeals painfully for a moment and by the time Mr. C gets to Amazing Grace he has sweated up a storm in his rhinestone western shirt. Yee-haw!

As far as extras go, there is a selected discography which covers three pages and lists a whole heapin’ bunch of his records and such, but for a fan this would be practically useless wouldn’t it? During the scene selection page, some boffin has mispelled ‘Phoenix’ also. I hate it when that happens. I find spelling errors a flogging offence in this day and age. There is some Umbrella propaganda in the form of four trailers for other releases of a similar flavour which include Willie Nelson - Some Enchanted Evening, Hank Williams Jr - Full Access, Good Rockin’ Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records and Freebird the Movie - Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Mmm, yummo.

Overall this is one for the fans and fans alone. The video presentation isn’t really worthwhile, but as a live CD this would work fairly well for a deadset fan. Growing up on a farm a lot of folks around dug on country music and perhaps that has soured me a little, but that being said, I do enjoy some every now and then (when visiting my parents, I guess).

And by the way - I didn’t like the version of Wichita Lineman presented here either. It wasn’t as good as the studio stuff, but that’s a whole different argument I have no wish to enter into at present.


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  •   And I quote...
    "Yee-HAW, git yer spangles on fer a night at the Gran’ Ol’ Opry! In Ireland. In 1981."
    - Jules Faber
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Teac DVD-990
    • TV:
          Sony 68cm
    • Speakers:
          Teac PLS-60 Home Theatre System
    • Centre Speaker:
          Teac PLS-60 Home Theatre System
    • Surrounds:
          Teac PLS-60 Home Theatre System
    • Subwoofer:
          Akai
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard RCA
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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