Rating: 
Summary: To answer your question....
Review: This DVD is actually a concert filmed, I believe, in the Northwest last year, during Joe's "Night and Day 2" tour. The eclectic backing band includes a cellist, violinist and traditional rock musicians, among others - Joe himself called them his best touring band ever. The concert was originally released as an audio CD, "Two Rainy Nights", and was available exclusively from Joe's website. It actually includes a few more songs. The arrangements are very good - most of the newer stuff remaining fairly faithful to recorded versions, while the older material gets a little new life breathed into them. If the audio CD is any indication, this DVD is a must-get for JJ fans. I don't have any info on the artist interview yet, but having read "A Cure For Gravity", I'm very interested in the extra features. I plan on getting it.So while I don't even have it yet, I'm giving it four stars, just because I know how good the CD is and because I think the bonus features will be worth the price.
Rating: 
Summary: Why is this so bad?
Review: This is just an awful DVD. For starters, the sound quality is inexcusable and represents absolutely no production care or effort whatsoever - think bootleg quality (one fave part of mine takes place in the second verse of Real Man when Jackson is playing the piano and you hear all band and absolutely no piano, none). If that weren't enough, the video quality is inconsistent and poor. Finally, the content is so limited that in the end you're sure that you've ended up with the salvaged parts of a failed production effort; one which should have been scrapped. I saw this tour in San Francisco and thought it was mediocre to begin with. I was prejudiced though: One year prior I saw Jackson at the Bottom Line in New York where he played only with Burke and Maby, parked his butt behind a piano, and gave one of the best live performances I've ever seen (that mini-tour is captured on the Summer In The City:Live In New York CD). A concert on DVD can be nothing short of spectacular: James Taylor's Live From the Beacon, Dave Matthews Band's Listener Supported, and many others take full advantage of this incredible medium to use unprecedented sound and video quality to create a truly unique experience for the viewer. Why then are there so many horrible concert DVDs? Because some concert DVDs are about a process dedicated to capturing the live experience and therefore consider elements such as appropriate equipment, great sound production, video production, lighting, direction, editing, mastering, and other things which cost money. Other DVDs are just about getting the artist onto a DVD as cheaply as possible to make some quick cash. Nobody is asking for producers to break out Scorcese and crank out another Last Waltz, but if anyone thinks consumers aren't going to see through the process of showing up midtour and filming a few nights of a band's performance without further forethought or preparation, well then, they're just wrong. (...)
Rating:
Summary: Why is this so bad?
Review: This is just an awful DVD. For starters, the sound quality is inexcusable and represents absolutely no production care or effort whatsoever - think bootleg quality (one fave part of mine takes place in the second verse of Real Man when Jackson is playing the piano and you hear all band and absolutely no piano, none). If that weren't enough, the video quality is inconsistent and poor. Finally, the content is so limited that in the end you're sure that you've ended up with the salvaged parts of a failed production effort; one which should have been scrapped. I saw this tour in San Francisco and thought it was mediocre to begin with. I was prejudiced though: One year prior I saw Jackson at the Bottom Line in New York where he played only with Burke and Maby, parked his butt behind a piano, and gave one of the best live performances I've ever seen (that mini-tour is captured on the Summer In The City:Live In New York CD). A concert on DVD can be nothing short of spectacular: James Taylor's Live From the Beacon, Dave Matthews Band's Listener Supported, and many others take full advantage of this incredible medium to use unprecedented sound and video quality to create a truly unique experience for the viewer. Why then are there so many horrible concert DVDs? Because some concert DVDs are about a process dedicated to capturing the live experience and therefore consider elements such as appropriate equipment, great sound production, video production, lighting, direction, editing, mastering, and other things which cost money. Other DVDs are just about getting the artist onto a DVD as cheaply as possible to make some quick cash. Nobody is asking for producers to break out Scorcese and crank out another Last Waltz, but if anyone thinks consumers aren't going to see through the process of showing up midtour and filming a few nights of a band's performance without further forethought or preparation, well then, they're just wrong. (...)
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