Neil Young In Berlin
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Movie Reviews of Neil Young In Berlin
Movie Review: Great stuff with VHS image quality
Summary: 4 Stars
I could be a great rock concert video in high resolution, but the image, from the VHS era, is poor as expected. This is the best Neil Young you can get from the 80's, in a DVD made for South Korea. The classic Neil Young plus three electronic songs.Movie Review: A Redemption of sorts for a fallow period
Summary: 3 Stars
Young runs hot and cold and during this epoch of his life, the tremendous challenges confronting him as a father of 2 children afflicted with debilitating illness had him preoccupied with their care. As a result, what most people, including his record company never knew, was that experiments like TRANS were meant to be a sort of working out of some technologies that might help his sons become more integrated into the world and give them an active way of participating in it. The technologies here also were part of Young's fascination and involvement in Lionel trains.Does this make for good music? Not really. But this stuff came off better in concert than it did on CD. Sophisticated technical stuff is definitely overkill with Young in general, and some of the most humourous aspects of the biography SHAKEY, involve ol' Burnout obsessing over digital recording and so on. Young and the Horse are a one trick pony. It's a trick that is terrific when it has the spook, and a total mess otherwise. The bio paints this tour in particular as being a disaster of epic proportions that nearly had the stumble-bum musicians, especially Bruce Palmer, at each other's throats.
Nonetheless, by the looks of it here they actually managed to pull off a decent show from time to time. This video offers the NY fan a chance to evaluate the Trans period from the vantage point of Young's strengths: live performance. The star of the show is really Nils Lofgren, the diminutive guitarist from DC who resides now in the E Street Supper Club. There was a time in his career though where he brought out the best in Young, and for this show he is absolutely at the top of his game. Palmer has no idea he is in Europe, and the rest of the band is along for the ride, likely hoping like hell there is any money left at the end.
It's real innarestin, as the man himself might put it.....
Movie Review: reclusive Neil Young,pls. wake up, you're loosing Control !
Summary: 3 Stars
While this DVD of Neil in Berlin is visually absolutely superior to the 1983 video it is surprising that Neil who always exerts so much control over sound quality messed up this time. Because of his present state of reclusiveness he has allowed the sound mixers to do the stangest things to his sound. There is an overdosis of heavy low sound, most likely of drums and bass which were either shuffled more to the foreground and/or were remixed at much lower tone levels and increased volume levels. This doesn't sound like Neil Young anymore.I played both the DVD and the 1983 Video various times, next to each other, simultanuously, switching from one to the other and there is NO doubt, the video sound is far superior and the DVD sound is simply very strange! Also very careless is the omission of Hurricane from the songlist!!
Wake up Neil !! Don't continue to hide in lonely reclusion, Red Rocks live and Greendales! Give the Fans what they are looking forward to; A Neil Young not going back to Silver&Gold but progressing to Heavy Metal, see the riffs you tried on Rockin' in the free world. THAT is progress on the garage sound and grunge sound of Live Rust, Ragged Glory and Weld. Wake up Neil Young, don't let those soundmixers take control and change the sound of YOUR music.
Movie Review: Almost embarrassed
Summary: 3 Stars
The first few songs into this DVD I was almost embarrassed for Neil. I had always thought of him as a "timeless classic" kind of guy, but here, thankfully, is evidence to the contrary. I say "thankfully" because I think it's a good thing that Neil had the ability and the willingness to experiment with the trendy electronica that was popular in the early 80's. in Berlin, especially. Hopefully, most people will chuckle a bit as Neil opens the show in a bright green double-brested weirdo kind of outfit, that eventually devolves into a black shirt and black jeans (with one of those skinny white ties that was popular back then). Much more appropriate for the kind of music that Neil gets back to during the latter 1/3 of the movie. This is where the "real Neil" really shines. Jamming, rocking guitars and lots of energy. The crowd really eats it up.
I haven't dabbled with the different audio settings yet, it sounds fine in regular stereo. The video quality is average. considering it's 20 years old, it's actually pretty good. Real Neil fans and collectors will love this video because it's so different from what most people would expect from a man with Neil's reputation as the "Godfather of Grunge".
Movie Review: For the fans
Summary: 3 Stars
This DVD captures a concert given by Neil and the Trans Band in Berlin in 1982. If you are a Neil Young fan you will undoubtably enjoy the 60 minute concert with good versions of Cinnamon Girl, Like A Hurricane and songs from the Trans album.The main disappointment of this set however is the complete abscense of extras (a disappointing 5.1 stereo mix is not an extra !),the uninspiring packaging and the short running time.
The main positive point is the inclusion of the unreleased track Berlin, which it has to be said is a damn good song.
As I noted earlier fans will enjoy this. If you are looking for a definative Neil DVD I'd recommend the RoadRocks show.