DVD.net : Alison Krauss + Union Station - Live

Where I come from, the country, music like that of Alison Krauss is very popular. Country music is huge out that way and Iâ€™ve never really been sure why.

Perhaps itâ€™s the brittle melodies that can run ragged at full-tilt, or perhaps itâ€™s the melancholia of the broken-hearted love songs. Maybe itâ€™s just something akin to familiarity within the songs; in that other people feel stuff the same way you do (they just express it better in verse).

Whatever it is, I wasnâ€™t finding myself clawing through this as much as I expected to. Iâ€™m not much on country music, but here Alison Krauss and her backing band Union Station take us through an intense and long-running set list that incorporates just about every possible feeling there is to be evoked from country music.

She speaks quite eloquently to the audience in this nearly two-hour show from the Louisville Palace in Louisville, Kentucky, conversing easily and with a certain amount of good humour, but the music is definitely the highlight for any fan here. Shot just last year to encompass her New Favorite Tour, she and her band run through a heavy playlist with some songs running on and on as the band enjoy a heaving series of jams to fill out the mix. As far as performances go, this is very entertaining and intimate in the surroundings of this well-lit audience (to whom Ms. Krauss admits to being intimidated by, compared to her usual darkened audiences).

The set list runs thus (with my highlights in bold)

Let Me Touch You For Awhile
Choctaw Hayride
The Lucky One
Baby, Now That Iâ€™ve Found You
Bright Sunny South
Everytime You Say Goodbye
Tiny Broken Heart
Cluck Old Hen
Stay
Broadway
Ghost In This House
Forget About It
Faraway Land
A Tribute To Peador Oâ€™Donnell/Monkey Let The Hogs Out
The Boy Who Wouldnâ€™t Hoe Corn
Take Me For Longing
I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow
Maybe
We Hide & Seek
But You Know I Love You
When You Say Nothing At All
New Favorite

Oh, Atlanta

Song titles there should be enough alone to give you an idea of the sort of varied mix delivered, with some contemporary mainstream songs all gussied up as well as some traditional arrangements.

This is shot in high-definition and for the most part the picture looks brilliantly clear in this darkened theatre. The transfer hasnâ€™t been completed to the same degree of high-definition, unfortunately, with numerous moments of faint macro-blocking in the darker areas. Colour is nice and bright without overflowing its boundaries and flesh tones look natural enough, if a little pallid. Shadow detail is surprisingly good and if you can ignore the faint macro issues, the detail is impressive. Blacks are true as well and complement the heavy use of reds and earth tones in the lighting.

The audio stage is fantastic here and presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround as well as DTS 5.1 surround. Both are superlative exhibitions of sound recording and sound pristine in their clarity. There is also a PCM stereo mix, but that couldnâ€™t compete with the two surround options as the surrounds are in constant use and each take a single instrument at times lending that overall feeling of composites making a whole. A very nice surround package, with the subwoofer staying in a constant state of flux to cope with the deeper volumes of drums and double bass. Ms. Krauss speaks well to the audience at times and has that lilting sing-song accent of the South that is so easy to listen to. She tries funny voices at times to varying effects and sometimes they get a little mumbled and hard to understand. However, the songs are always delivered in clear English.

This is a two-disc set, and solely for the purpose of squeezing the extras in I imagine. With such a generous visual package, there wasnâ€™t any room to put all this stuff on Disc One, but there really isnâ€™t enough to justify a Disc Two. Allow me to explainâ€¦

Firstly we get a series of interviews with the band together and as individuals. These vary in length with Alisonâ€™s going on longest at 12:59, and there are seven in total. The video quality is very poor for this with very soft edges and compression drama occurring throughout, so I canâ€™t imagine this takes up a lot of space.

So too with the On the Road tour footage. This runs for 11:54 and is a cruddy bunch of videotaped backstage bits tacked together. It has its moments, but this would be a strictly fans-only affair I think. Again the visual quality is below average and there is a lot of footage of the band wanting to go and shoot the turkeys in the long grass near the bus. Ah turkey-shootingâ€¦ is there any greater pastime?

The Tribute to Frank Edmonston is a short collection of video and photo bits of some dude on the crew who I assume died. There is no context for this and no explanation and the thing runs for 4:30 with soulful music.

Then a discography with track listings and a music video of the song New Favorite by the group. This is in 1.78:1 without enhancement.

So, like I said, not a lot of cause for a second disc, but something is better than nothing for fans I suppose.

If youâ€™re a fan of Alison Krauss or her band (or any individual members, who all seem to have their own careers as well) then this is sure to please, as they cover a bunch of stuff from their recent album plus a bunch of other stuff from the past. The visual quality is quite nice, though if you donâ€™t have an NTSC telly youâ€™re stuffed because this is presented in that crappy American format.

Even if you switched off the TV youâ€™ve got yourself a very nicely presented live set from the group if thatâ€™s your thing. The extras disc isnâ€™t worth much but filler for a two-disc set and the general picture quality of the second disc rates around a four out of ten, but for the fans it may be the best thing they ever saw, I dunno. Anyway, the first disc is the money disc here, and if youâ€™re a fan of country or the group you could do a lot worse than this pretty intimate recent concert.