Mary Chapin Carpenter has grown from a shy and nervous acoustic club performer into a multi-award winning major country music star. She first began to perform publicly during her time at Brown University, at the school coffee shop. She would also play at many of the local acoustic venues around her Washington home, where she would return during the holidays.

After graduating from university, Carpenter returned to Washington where she became a regular at many of the bars in the area, mainly covering the material of others. In 1983 Carpenter took a personal assistant job with an organisation working in South America and South Africa on human rights issues. This job allowed Carpenter to ease back on the bar performing and to concentrate on writing. She was soon adding some of her own material into her sets.

Her career began to take off in 1986 when she was nominated for, and won, a number of Washington Area Music Awards, one for best new artist and another for best songwriter. Record companies were now becoming interested in her and in 1986 she signed with Columbia Nashville, the country division of Columbia Music.

Her second album, State of the Heart, raised her profile and she really hit the big time with her third album, Shooting Straight in the Dark. She won the "best country female vocal performance" Grammy for the song Down at the Twist and Shout and has never looked back. She has now released two multi-platinum selling albums and has won five Grammy awards to date.

On this DVD we see Carpenter perform live at the Wolf Trap, an interesting venue that features both normal concert seating and open grassed areas. Interspersed between many of the tracks is a short interview section featuring either Carpenter or members of her band. There is also footage of her performing during rehearsals and at other venues.

The playlist for this particular performance is:

1. Why Walk When You Can Fly	10. John Doe No.24
2. Passionate Kisses	11. Only A Dream
3. I Feel Lucky	12. I Am A Town
4. Jubilee	13. Can't Take Love For Granted
5. Shut Up And Kiss Me	14. Stones In The Road
6. A Keeper For Every Flame	15. The Hard Way
7. That's The Way Love Goes	16. Quittin' Time
8. Come On Come On	17. He Thinks He'll Keep Her
9. The Last Word	18. Down At The Twist And Shout

Please note that the video encoded on this disc is in NTSC format. Please ensure that your display device can handle this standard, or that your DVD player can convert this to Pal 60 before obtaining a copy.

This disc features an OK video transfer that is just good enough to allow you to sit back and enjoy the performance. Close detail levels are adequate, but middle to longer distance shots are lacking in detail. Colours are nicely reproduced and the black level is good. There aren't any real problems with this transfer but you will see some minor aliasing as well as a couple of examples of cross colouration. The image jumps slightly in a couple of places. I'm not sure if this is a transfer issue or inherent in the source material.

This disc is a "flipper". You'll have to get up and turn the disc over at the completion of the song Only a Dream. There is no graphic telling you to flip the disc, it simply stops playing. One minor bummer is that after flipping the audio reverted to the stereo soundtrack and I had to switch over to the 5.1 track manually.

The most important part of a concert DVD is the audio transfer and with this disc you wont be disappointed. The Dolby Digital 5.1 track that I listened to has a nice open or live sound to it. There is none of that artificial mixing of specific instruments in the rears, rather the rears are used to create an immersive overall sound. The front channels are well used and do feature specific instruments. For example, the two main guitarists are heard in the left and right channels as you see them on the stage. The subwoofer is nicely integrated into the sound and is used to carry the bass as well as some of the lower drum sounds.

The extras are limited to a discography for Mary Chapin Carpenter.