Four Bitchin' Babes - Meet the Babes

Rating:
Summary: Meet the Babes and Love It
Review: The babes are more than excellent. I was able to buy this video at a concert they put on nearby and have watched it ten or eleven times, already. The songs are great, some make you laugh, others just make you feel good, and you'll laugh in between. I would recommend this video to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Appeal of 4Babes/material overshadow mediocre camera/sound
Review: We've been a fan of three of this Four Babes lineup - Debi Smith, Sally Fingerett and Megon McDonough -- as solo acts during the pre-Babe years, and now Camille West, more recently, through her hilarious work with the Babes. Although each performer is a terrific singer-songwriter musician (with ongoing, award-winning solo careers) with versatile, but unique styles, they actually benefit from the influence and the mix of the other three, especially on stage. This disc, recorded live at the Southern Theatre in Columbus, Ohio, highlights some of their best material, rotating through each performer as the soloist with the others as backup, and the occasional group effort. Their voices and 4-part harmonies are particularly sonorous (bitchin'?) here, with the added/inherent DVD benefit of being able to jump directly to songs, and they're just plain fun to watch, as always.

The drawbacks are (1) the mediocre camera work (VHS-like resolution; rapid cross-cutting between cameras, even when some are clearly out of position; rapid in/out zooming; odd/distorted image formation (in one of the side cameras) and some bizarre, unflattering low angles) and (2) unexceptional DVD sound quality, with little or no separation, and no surround information (even a little ambience). It almost sounds like the mikes were put in front of the PA speakers, rather than being fed through the mixing board. The sound isn't bad or distorted by any means, it's just sort-of flat compared to some other concert DVDs I have. (Yes, I checked my surround sound system and tried a variety of surround and non-surround settings!) Also, it would've been nice to have had the pre-song intros/banter given separate track numbers, so you could skip right to the beginning of the songs themselves, but that's a minor complaint. And...rapid cross-cutting is an unfortunate fact of life on too many concert videos, even the big-budget ones (like James Taylor's Beacon Theater DVD).

All told, the Four Bitchin' Babes' Meet the Babes DVD gets an A+ for the music, performances and all-around good fun, but a C for video and sound. It's not expensive, cheaper than a ticket, and enjoyable nonetheless, so it definitely rates a "buy." But see them anyway when they come through your town, and check out ...