Rating: 
Summary: ESSENTIAL
Review: The performance is art in its most innocent form.
Nils Lofgren almost steals the show.
Rating: 
Summary: For the fans
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Mr Young - a master of different styles
Review: This DVD is a welcome addition to any music library - excellent sound quality and very well photographed. The video is a documentary of the last show of the 1982 European "Trans Band" Tour (which supported the release of Neil Young's "Trans" LP), held on 10-19-1982, Deutschlandhalle, in West Berlin. The actual concert features 21 songs, with 11 of them selected for the DVD. Mr Young and his band , ( Bruce Palmer(of Buffalo Springfield), bass, Ralph Molina(Crazy Horse) drums, Joe Lala congas, Ben Keith, pedal steel/keyboards and Nils Lofgren on guitar and keyboards) play with absorbed intensity, and are very, very "tight". The highlights for me include the performances of the songs from Trans featuring the "vocoder", a device developed by Mr Young which gives his voice a mechanical/robotic tone, so that when he sings "Transformer Man", and "Sample and Hold", he sounds alienated and cold, appropriately expressing the inability of a human being to actually communicate with another human being via a keyboard or video screen. The performance of "Like a Hurricane" is out-of-this-world, and Ben Keith is special with his steel-guitar work on "Old Man". However, the best is left for last, where the song "After Berlin" is performed for the first and last time. This is a poignant song and the feeling Mr Young conveys with his singing and playing visibly moves the audience in Berlin. I highly recommend this DVD to any one who loves music
Rating:
Summary: Mr Young - a master of different styles
Review: This DVD is a welcome addition to any music library - excellent sound quality and very well photographed. The video is a documentary of the last show of the 1982 European "Trans Band" Tour (which supported the release of Neil Young's "Trans" LP), held on 10-19-1982, Deutschlandhalle, in West Berlin. The actual concert features 21 songs, with 11 of them selected for the DVD. Mr Young and his band , ( Bruce Palmer(of Buffalo Springfield), bass, Ralph Molina(Crazy Horse) drums, Joe Lala congas, Ben Keith, pedal steel/keyboards and Nils Lofgren on guitar and keyboards) play with absorbed intensity, and are very, very "tight". The highlights for me include the performances of the songs from Trans featuring the "vocoder", a device developed by Mr Young which gives his voice a mechanical/robotic tone, so that when he sings "Transformer Man", and "Sample and Hold", he sounds alienated and cold, appropriately expressing the inability of a human being to actually communicate with another human being via a keyboard or video screen. The performance of "Like a Hurricane" is out-of-this-world, and Ben Keith is special with his steel-guitar work on "Old Man". However, the best is left for last, where the song "After Berlin" is performed for the first and last time. This is a poignant song and the feeling Mr Young conveys with his singing and playing visibly moves the audience in Berlin. I highly recommend this DVD to any one who loves music
Rating:
Summary: A keeper!
Review: To think I was about to get up and turn the channel just before this concert began to air on HBO in September 1983. I would have miss out on the wonderful kaleidoscope of great tunes Neil Young pounded out that night. Only being used to acoustical versions of his songs on the radio, I watched as Young started strumming out the all too familiar 'Cinnamon Girl' (the best version of this song I've heard) and then moving on to 'Computer Age', the hard hitting 'Sample And Hold' and an enchanting but rock out version of 'Hurricane'. 'Hey Hey My My' and 'Berlin' was the icing on the cake and rounded out a great concert. Needless to say I bought the DVD as soon as it was available. The picture quality for the year this was shot (1982) could have been better, but the sound is great although the 5.1 for this release is a bit overrated.
All in all having this concert on DVD is like having magic in a bottle. To this day I'm not that much of a Neil Young fan but this concert has made me appreciate his talents as a music artist and showman more than ever. This DVD rocks!
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: While I have to admit I am not a huge Neil Young fan, this is truly an awesome concert. The first time I saw it was many years ago on the USA Network's Night Flight program. For you younsters out there, this was the during the very early days of MTV, music videos, etc. I can remember getting up off the couch (no "clicker" way back then) and cranking up the sound. Wow, what a show! Then, out of now where comes Sample And Hold. At the time, I was a beginning computer geek and this song totally blew me away. While obvious that some of the other band members just didn't get it and had no idea how to relate to the music, Neil and Nils really nail it in this futuristic view of a cyber world that was soon to come. Neil's techno preview of the dawning of a new age is always overlooked and rarely mentioned in reviews of his body of work. I am sure you will enjoy this rare glimpse at yet another side of the amazing Neil Young.
Rating:
Summary: reclusive Neil Young,pls. wake up, you're loosing Control !
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Neil Young In Berlin
Review: Without a doubt one of the best if not THE best rock albumns of all time. The DVD is even better than the laserdisk version. Young and fellow band members mesmerize the audience with most selections and especially the unique performance of "Berlin" (which is not available on any other NY albumn). The video performance of selections from his Trans album finally do justice to them. The alltime supreme rendition of "Like A Hurricane". An absolutely "must have" albumn for all R&R fans.
Rating:
Summary: A Redemption of sorts for a fallow period
Review: 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.....
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