Arena: Caught In the Act

Rating:
Summary: Prog At It,s Finest
Review: An amazing DVD filmed in a Krakow,Poland TV studio before a live audience.A great companion piece to Arena,s new concept album,Contagion,released earlier this year.The concert is about 2 hours long,and contains the entire aforementioned album,plus cuts from their previous albums,Pride,The Visitor,and Immortal.Lead singer,Rob Sowden is a terrific frontman,who incorporates theatrics with a great vocal range.John Mitchell is simply one of the finest guitarists that I have ever seen.He excels with Arena,s brand of melodic prog with a little metal added to the mix.John has his own band The Urbane,and also plays lead guitar in The John Wetton Band,where he must emulate the styles of Fripp,Howe,and Holdsworth.
The keyboard player is Clive Nolan,who plays keys and sings lead in his own band Shadowland.Clive is also Pendragon,s keyboardist.
Mick Pointer,on drums is from Marillion,and Ian Salmon plays bass.
The videography is first rate with numerous camera angles.The sound is awesome,since the DVD was filmed in a studio.Arena is able to recreate the sound of their records splendidly.Clive and John are really good vocalists,who compliment Rob,s leads,unlike other bands performing live,who have to hire backup singers.
John Mitchell is also a showman,who can make his guitar talk.
I saw John Mitchell play last summer with The John Wetton Band,did a little research on Arena and was hooked.I now have their entire catalog.As a collector of Concert Videos,this was one band,that I really wanted to add to my collection.I just hope they do a U.S,Tour sometime in the future.Until then,I have this visual masterpiece to enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Arena At the Arena
Review: Arena es una de esas bandas que no es muy conocida en este lado del planeta,pero es, sin lugar a dudas, un grupo con mucha calidad musical.Los fundadores son : Clive Nolan teclista tambien de la banda Pendragon y Mick Pointer baterista que fundara en los 80 a Marillion.

El concierto fue grabado en la gira de su ultimo trabajo llamado Contagion, contiene la mayoria de temas de este , mas una seleccion de canciones pertenecientes a los discos : The Visitor e Inmorta? La imagen esta muy bien lograda con buenos tiros de camara,muy limpia sin contener planos Bizarros,que en muchos casos fastidian al espectador,el sonido es 5.1 y estereo digital muy bien balanceado, pero muy bajito,algo que se puede solucionar subiendole a la perilla de volumen.

El vocalista Rob sowden, el guitarrita John Mitchell y el bajista Ian Salmon hacen un trabajo fantastico con mucha calidad interpretativa.

Como Encores el dvd trae tres temas de los primeros albumes : Jericho, solomon y crying for help, ademas, de otros features como biografia,discografia,fotos,etc. Este dvd es recomnedado para aquellos que les gusta el buen Rock (progresivo)y que estan canzados del rock basura con el que nos saturan en los medios de comunicacion.

Rating:
Summary: A REAL TREAT!
Review: From one of the best progressive rock band, this DVD came at the right time with the new technology. A complete show with great filming, good light show, and good picture. It's not surprising that the set list is great when you know that this band doesn't make a lot of bad songs. The only down side; is the sound that is too low. There also some good stuff with the interviews with the band.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: I attended to Arena tour on europe and this DVD captures the genuine spirit of this tour adding an excellent sound quality (a little bit lower though, so you have to turn on the volume to listen to a right volume level) The concert starts with the Contagion album being played almost in its entirety with every single version of the album being improved in the live set. The rhythm section sounds powerful and delicate at the same time with both Mick Pointer and Ian Salmon doing and excellent job. I prefer the previous bass player (Jon Jowit) but I have to say that Ian is doing a wonderful job with the band. John Mitchell's guitar is finest as ever with some nice variations in some songs (IE: final solo in Ascension). Clive Nolan job is 5 stars being one of the best keyboard players worlwide and Rob Sowden voice and acting is fantastic, being able to go through all the albums without problems, singing songs originally thought for two other wonderful singers (Jericho is one of the hardest to sing songs I've ever listen to)

They selected most of the songs for the rest of the concert from the visitor album, inmortal album and SOngs from the lion's cage album. As always it's hard to make a full song selection but it would have been nice to play Moviedrome in this set (not included in the tour actually).......but that's too much to ask for.

Excellent Sound quality, very good Video (with some failures but nothing serious, at least in 32" TVs) and one of the best Prog bands playing .....don't think about it this is a must have.

Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: Its been a long time since I was able to give 5 stars to a concert DVD but this one is excellent. A nice long high quality performance. both sound and visualy well captured. Great camera work shows what you want to see. no corny graphics floating around or bizzar camera angles.
The extras are pretty decent too. Nice long interview with mick and Clive. Plus all the art work for you to rip.
This is a must for US fans so buy it!

Rating:
Summary: Almost Perfect !
Review: The image & sound are perfect. If you like bands like Marillion, IQ, Dream Theater, Flower Kings, Spock Beards & Transatlantic, this DVD is for you. For the people that already know Arena, there are two songs that will miss, "Crack in the Ice" and "Moviedrome". The performance of the band is very good.
Keep it under Progressive Rock label.

Rating:
Summary: Very good show, but the video quality is improper
Review: The show itself is very good and the musicianship is just superb - modern progressive at its best! The set is long (more than 20 songs) and well balanced (includes almost all songs from the last album plus numbers from all other Arena CDs).
But since it is a review to the DVD (not a show or a band!), it's drawbacks can not be overlooked.
1) video quality is not good enough, and sometimes it is simply awful (Solomon middle and end parts)
2) sound mix also leaves much to be desired: sound level is too low, dynamic range is limited, bass is indistinct, background speakers are used only a number of times during the show, no real surround is felt (frankly, no real difference between 2.0 and 5.1 mixes can be heard more than 90 percent of the show).
But there are also some advantages: good menus, interesting extra features including interview with Clive Nolan and Mick Pointer, and, as I have already mentioned, the show itself being very good!
So my recommendation is: buy it (except for the case you are a kind of video\audio purist like me for whom modern technology should result in a product of truly high quality without such annoying defects)!

Rating:
Summary: Arena of Power and Wisdom
Review: What a great DVD! The band sounds phenominal! I bought Cantgion (the CD) last spring and have listened to it numerous times (and loved it!) but not until I saw this concert on DVD did I really grasp the full-effect of this band! Why don't you see this kind of stuff in the USA? Is it just too good for the average american joe to handle? If you like intelligent, well-written, well-performed music that is truly artistic as well as adventurous in all respects - then check Arena out now!