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Sarah McLachlan - Mirrorball

Sarah McLachlan - Mirrorball

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $15.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An imperfect gem
Review: This is a terrific performance featuring a wonderful and lengthy selection of McLachlan's material (including the oft-neglected "Elsewhere") performed skillfully and passionately. As a DVD it scores points for its excellent picture quality (the final word on film's superiority to video!) and tasteful use of surround sound for conveying concert-hall ambiance.

Between-song editing leaves much to be desired, however, breaking up the you-are-there feeling, and the sound of all the musicians except McLachlan is extremely compressed--don't come looking for a balanced, dynamic presentation of a live *band*. Likewise with the ancillary material: Biographical and photographic attention to McLachlan's killer group are entirely omitted in favor of spotlighting McLachlan--even in the alternate camera angles offered during three songs! Granted, it's Sarah's show, but this is ridiculous--and, I would think, insulting.

In any case, *Mirrorball* is a great DVD and a highly enjoyable concert; McLachlan has really matured as a performer since the release of *Fumbling Towards Ecstasy*.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Loved it!
Review: I bought this c.d. and seeing it on DVD was even better. I love the songs Ice Cream, Building a Mystery, Angel, Sweet Surrender, and many more. At times I found myself getting up and dancing around!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sarah McLachlan is the best female singer-songwriter today
Review: This DVD proves it. A live, "greatest hits"-type DVD. It covers all of her popular songs in a awesome concert recording. From "Building a Mystery" (Surfacing), to "Possession" (Fumbling Towards Ecstacy), to the very popular "I Will Remember You" which is also hard to find. Her singing and songwriting greatness is probably because she's from the GREAT NORTHWEST. (Vancouver, B.C.) We've got lots of talent up here. And Sarah is one of the best we offer.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Outstanding
Review: This is one of the best female live concert dvd's on the market today. A class act. This one is a keeper.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: If you heard the CD first, you may be dissapointed...
Review: The DVD does not contain the same audio tracks as the Mirrorball CD. The DVD tracks were recorded on the last performance of the tour, while the tracks on the cd are from earler performance dates. There is a noticeable difference in quality. Sarah's voice sounds worn out and tired during her DVD performance and it really shows. My voice would be tired and worn out too on the last show of a tour. She is still great, but my favorite track, "Sweet Surrender", sounds much better on the CD version than the DVD. I can say this for almost every other track on the DVD compared to the CD.

Still, just watching her perform all these tracks live, makes up for the lackluster show.

I wish this DVD was recorded during her earlier shows on the tour instead of the last show of the tour.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Performance overcomes the poor production
Review: The performance captured here is tremendous as I think every would agree.

I didn't mind the visuals either, even though I was reluctant to get a 4:3 aspect ratio concert DVD. It scaled onto 16:9 not that badly. I liked the grainy film look but I suspect the visual quality and sync errors people are reporting are probably due to the DVD production house cramming 90 minutes of A/V plus extra angles into the stream. I appreciated being able to focus on an set angle on some of the tracks but I think they used 4 angles for the entire duration of the concert. I'm basing this on the fact my player was able to detect 4 angles at all times through the disc, even if those weren't 4 distinct angles. That excess material probably steals bandwidth from the overall visual quality.

Audio is another story though. I first came back here to check if my DVD was defective though because the 5.1 audio track sounded absolutely horrible - all boomy and full of echoes as if it had been recorded in a rink. It was bad enough that I had to double-check my equipment and then search here to confirm the source is the DVD itself.

I suspect the people not complaining about the audio are maybe not audiophiles or more probably they are listening to the 2 channel track, which is excellent. To my surprise and against my better judgement I find the only way I can listen to this disc is to use the 2 channel track and then let the receiver add the ambience - not a normal practice on my part and one which would ordinarily degrade the audio rather than improve it.

How does one rate this then? I'd want to give it a 5/5 based on the great peformance and the length. But a concert DVD like this needs to be rated against some of the standard bearers and I was very disappointed in how the audio stacks up. Not that it would have to exceed say Eagles DTS, but a concert DVD should not attract negative attention because of its poor sound.

I'd want to chop at least a couple of points for the poor audio and 4:3 AR, but since the stereo track serves as an OK substitute in this case I'm going to go with a 4/5


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: BRILLIANT, BEAUTIFUL....
Review: What can I say, this is an outstanding concert DVD!
Beautifully shot by expert video director Sophie Muller and she's done such a wonderful job in capturing
Sarah's natural beauty (Fumbling Towards Ecstacy in particular is absolutely brilliant, smashing sound, awesome stage
lighting with the thousands and thousands of fairy lights and Sarah's voice is just otherworldly.)
Watch how Sarah rips it up with her steamy yet elegant version of Witness and Fear is just amazing to watch her sing.

An awesome concert experience and if you're a Sarah fan and don't own this, then guess what? You're not a real fan!
A MUST HAVE!!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Too flashy
Review: I really enjoyed this DVD!
I've read some of the other reviews where they complain about the sound, but my copy had no problems at all. Everything was clear as a bell, & no synchronization issues.
Sarah McLachlan has an incredibly beautiful voice, & she is a wonderful & talented live performer, & all of that was captured perfectly on this DVD!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Sarah good, DVD bad
Review: Any concert DVD not available in widescreen format...should get points knocked off immediately.

Most of the DVD's I own are concert DVD's and this is not one of the good ones. I agree with previous poster this is not even in the same hemisphere as the production quality on Hell Freezes Over.

Video is bad, sound is just ok...love Sarah's music...but this DVD stinks.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Starting to sound tired
Review: This is a good show. Sarah always performs well. One thing I would have to say is there is a lack of new material. This is the final show of this tour and most songs are still from Fumbling, which was nearly six years ago. She is beging to sound tired, after singing these songs for so long and a the end of the tour. Also, it seems most of her new songs are very slow, almost lullaby like.

I would recomend instead the Fumbling towards Extacy VHS tape (not on DVD yet) These were recorded when they were new and fresh and Sarah just sounds so much more enthusiastic with the songs.


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