New Live Release: BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL discussion thread

[Rodni Demental]

BTFW version of SDV is the only version I can tolerate. Original is too boring... Budokan HY is in the exact same category comparing it to studio version for me. The live versions breathes life into songs that didn't exist on the originals.

[faizoff]

Funny this thread gets bumped, been spending all my time watching every DT live release after seeing them live last week. Today I popped this bluray in and I'm ashamed to say I've only seen it once prior to today. Such a great performance.

[rumborak]

So the discussion in the MM thread inspired me to watch Illumination Theory from BTFW. His drumming, though complex, is pretty accessible.


But I wanted to say this: I simply do not trust the "liveness" of this release. Did I actually hear a harmonized guitar bit? And damn is the orchestra distracting. Apparently they used the studio version for the middle piece, but does anyone know about the rest of the song?

Entirely independently, I rewatched the old TTLG video yesterday, which was a non-final edit of BTFW, and contained that overdub of the solo. ( https://youtu.be/DI7E_QvetVM , the end of the solo). BTFW is pretty massively overdubbed actually. At some point I had a bootleg of the show (sadly lost it) and did an A/B comparison. I found that all instruments were overdubbed at some place or another, many times unnecessarily so IMO.

[TAC]

Right. Even vocally, looking at James' lips and the sound I hear, it just doesn't seem right.
This is where (oh no I can't believe I'm going here) they miss MP. He had a great knack of hiding these things in the editing process.

I was there, and I still have not really dived into BTFW that much. I grew so accustomed to the bootleg in the months following the show. Especially James forgetting Erin's name and thanking the Boston college of music.

[bosk1]

As someone who grew up in the era that gave us World Wide Live, Kiss - Alive!, and Unleashed in the East, I'm surprised to see you even bat an eye at this.

[faizoff]

I will have to say the video editing of the fourth wall is less than enticing. I don't think it reflects the performance and doesn't go a lot with the musical cues. For eg there are several moments in the heavy set of the Awake songs that they use fading in and out as a transition as opposed to a quick cut, other times they linger way too long on just one musician when the intensity of the song dictates otherwise. I don't know about the overdub part as I don't think it affects my enjoyment much case in point I know Live at the Marquee is heavily overdubbed but I enjoy listening to that record a lot regardless.
I made a video rip of the fourth wall concert and have to say whatever downmix handbrake did to the output makes it sound fantastic and I watched/listened the entire thing start to finish yesterday and I might listen to it again today.

[TAC]

As someone who grew up in the era that gave us World Wide Live, Kiss - Alive!, and Unleashed in the East, I'm surprised to see you even bat an eye at this.

Well, I know EVERY live album has studio work. Heck even Kiss Alive II and UFO's Strangers In The Night have two tracks each recorded in a studio with crowd noise mixed on top.

WWL sounds so fake, I never listen to it.

More on this later...

[gzarruk]

I will have to say the video editing of the fourth wall is less than enticing. I don't think it reflects the performance and doesn't go a lot with the musical cues. For eg there are several moments in the heavy set of the Awake songs that they use fading in and out as a transition as opposed to a quick cut, other times they linger way too long on just one musician when the intensity of the song dictates otherwise. I don't know about the overdub part as I don't think it affects my enjoyment much case in point I know Live at the Marquee is heavily overdubbed but I enjoy listening to that record a lot regardless.
I made a video rip of the fourth wall concert and have to say whatever downmix handbrake did to the output makes it sound fantastic and I watched/listened the entire thing start to finish yesterday and I might listen to it again today.

I agree on the video editing, but I think it was better than on LALP, which had lots of out of sync parts and was mostly a Petrucci cam DVD 

[faizoff]

I will have to rewatch Luna park afterwards as I don't remember much of the video editing, I don't remember it being an issue at the time though.

[Cyclopssss]

No the issue was the crap sound.

[Pettor]

I play BTFW as much as SDOIT and SFAM which is a very good rating in itself. Really like how the sound turned out. Illumination Theory went from good (CD) to god damn amazing thanks to the live dvd.

[Architeuthis]

No the issue was the crap sound.

I actually think the sound is really good on the Luna Park blu-ray, especially the drums.. In fact it's a toss up for me which one I like better,  LALP or BTFW. Both great shows in their own way.

[faizoff]

I checked out a little of Luna park yesterday, the sound issue pretty much is the keyboard so low in the mix. I rip all my bluray so a similar thing happened with Rush's Clockwork Angels Tour bluray is the downmix that the program handbrake does is really good. That made both these concerts sounds so much better. The audio output is much clearer and a bit more balanced.

[hefdaddy42]

JP is way too loud on Luna Park.

[cramx3]

JP is way too loud on Luna Park.

This. My blu ray is all JP

[Architeuthis]

I checked out a little of Luna park yesterday, the sound issue pretty much is the keyboard so low in the mix. I rip all my bluray so a similar thing happened with Rush's Clockwork Angels Tour bluray is the downmix that the program handbrake does is really good. That made both these concerts sounds so much better. The audio output is much clearer and a bit more balanced.

I was not impressed with the sound mix on the Clockwork Angels dvd/blu-ray. The drums were drown out, especially the kick. It was the same thing at the C.A. concert too. As many years Rush has been touring, I couldn't believe they couldn't get the drum sound right. R40 was an improvement. 
Same happened to DT when they toured with Queensryche. The Toms and the Kickdrum were totally non-present. Strange that when Queensryche played, the drums were all perectly present. Hmmm, how bout that..

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

JP is way too loud on Luna Park.

JP too loud and JR too low, IMO.

Also, JLB gave one of his best DVD live performances and he mostly sounds amazing, but his vocals are badly mixed in the ballads. He is way too loud and the microphone imperfections come upfront way too much. I LOVE his rendition of Beneath the Surface and The Silent Man, but the mix is not good at all in those two tunes.

Luna Park had the potential of being one great live release (and it kinda is), but it fell flat in many departments. Also, the hype was so big for this one that when it finally got released after so much waiting lots of people were like: eh?
Watching it on the cinema was a pretty neat experience, tho.

[mikeyd23]

JP too loud and JR too low, IMO.

Also, JLB gave one of his best DVD live performances and he mostly sounds amazing, but his vocals are badly mixed in the ballads. He is way too loud and the microphone imperfections come upfront way too much. I LOVE his rendition of Beneath the Surface and The Silent Man, but the mix is not good at all in those two tunes.

Luna Park had the potential of being one great live release (and it kinda is), but it fell flat in many departments. Also, the hype was so big for this one that when it finally got released after so much waiting lots of people were like: eh?
Watching it on the cinema was a pretty neat experience, tho.

Yup, good post. For pretty much those reasons, BTFW>LP for me.

[cramx3]

JP is way too loud on Luna Park.

JP too loud and JR too low, IMO.

Also, JLB gave one of his best DVD live performances and he mostly sounds amazing, but his vocals are badly mixed in the ballads. He is way too loud and the microphone imperfections come upfront way too much. I LOVE his rendition of Beneath the Surface and The Silent Man, but the mix is not good at all in those two tunes.

Luna Park had the potential of being one great live release (and it kinda is), but it fell flat in many departments. Also, the hype was so big for this one that when it finally got released after so much waiting lots of people were like: eh?
Watching it on the cinema was a pretty neat experience, tho.

Yea pretty much this.  I also thought the crowd was going to be a bit more wild being south of the border, but it turned out to be no different than any other DT dvd besides the Chile official bootleg.

[Architeuthis]

I've never seen the Chile official bootleg, how is it?

[TAC]

I've never seen the Chile official bootleg, how is it?

It's a must have.

[Architeuthis]

I've never seen the Chile official bootleg, how is it?

It's a must have.

Is it audio or video? Where can I find this? I didn't see it in the bootleg section.

[TAC]

It's a Ytsejam DVD.

[Architeuthis]

It's a Ytsejam DVD.

Cool thanks!!!

[cramx3]

I've never seen the Chile official bootleg, how is it?

It's a must have.

I'm not sure I would say it's a must have.  It's similar to other ytsejam official bootlegs, poorer quality compared to official DVDs.  But I find this one really unique in that there's a large wild crowd and DT performs with a minimal set up.  I personally like some of the other official bootleg videos to be better concerts in terms of setlist and performance, but this one stands out mostly do to the setting as I mentioned.

[ReaperKK]

I feel like I want to sit down and watch all the live releases after reading the last page or so.

[TAC]

I'm not sure I would say it's a must have.  It's similar to other ytsejam official bootlegs, poorer quality compared to official DVDs.  But I find this one really unique in that there's a large wild crowd and DT performs with a minimal set up.  I personally like some of the other official bootleg videos to be better concerts in terms of setlist and performance, but this one stands out mostly do to the setting as I mentioned.

I love the small rig. I find it Zeppelin-esque. But all of the official bootleg DVDs are must haves IMO. It's a shame they have not been continued.

[rumborak]

I did not recall ever having seen the bootleg, but I watched it on Youtube yesterday. Entirely agree, it's incredible. It's as raw as you would hope it to be (plenty of small flubs here and there), James is ON 90% of the time, JP looks like a normal guy, and MP is having a blast. You see JP talking to his guitar tech occasionally (which I find delightful), oh, and that was the time when JR sported his porn mutton chops

[TAC]

  and MP is having a blast. 

I'm glad you mentioned that Rumbo. He looks like a 14 y/o kid playing in his bedroom. So joyful.

Plus it's an alternate setlist from Score and has a Band Only version of 8V. I can even live the corny Beat Club effects during Peruvian Skies.




And speaking of corny effects, has there ever been an explanation why they added all of that shit during Scarred on BTFW?

[mikeyd23]

Yeah it's a great video because it is so raw and stripped down. It's different than most other stuff they have put out in that regard.

[bosk1]

You see JP talking to his guitar tech occasionally (which I find delightful)...

JP and Maddi are pretty tight.  Even after the shows are over, it seems like Maddi is rarely more than a few feet away from wherever John is.

[bosk1]

And speaking of corny effects, has there ever been an explanation why they added all of that shit during Scarred on BTFW?

  I feel your pain.  I remember watching it the first time and going, "Wait...  what...?  Just...   WHY?!"

[rumborak]

You see JP talking to his guitar tech occasionally (which I find delightful)...

JP and Maddi are pretty tight.  Even after the shows are over, it seems like Maddi is rarely more than a few feet away from wherever John is.

I love seeing that stuff, because it reminds what an insane amount of work and support goes into concerts like that. It's not just 5 guys on stage, there's 20 other people working the ropes in the background.

Peter Gabriel has a really cool live DVD called "Downside Up" where they make a point out of occasionally filming below stage to show all the guys being busy.

[TAC]

Peter Gabriel has a really cool live DVD called "Downside Up" where they make a point out of occasionally filming below stage to show all the guys being busy.

I've never seen that, but I bet it's real cool.

Iron Maiden routinely highlights their crew members on DVDs.

[bosk1]

You see JP talking to his guitar tech occasionally (which I find delightful)...

JP and Maddi are pretty tight.  Even after the shows are over, it seems like Maddi is rarely more than a few feet away from wherever John is.

I love seeing that stuff, because it reminds what an insane amount of work and support goes into concerts like that. It's not just 5 guys on stage, there's 20 other people working the ropes in the background.

Yeah, it's really eye-opening to see (1) how many guys and gals there are working behind the scenes to make a tour happen, and doing all the things most of us don't even give a second thought to, and (2) how nonstop busy they are the vast majority of the time they are on the road.  I think a lot of people (myself included for a long time) naively just assume there are maybe 10 or so folks that travel with the band who only really "work" for an hour or two before the show setting up, mostly just hang out casually in case something goes wrong during the show, and then work for an hour or so tearing down afterward.  It isn't like that.  I don't know how big DT's crew and traveling management staff are, since I have not seen them all in one place at the same time, but I would guess close to 30, and maybe a few more (can you imagine a band like Maiden?).  And they are working nonstop. 

If it is any indication, here's an anecdote:  Typically, whenever DT is scheduled to roll through my town, I start getting emails or PM's from Maddi a couple of weeks before the show where we talk about maybe finding some time to hang out and shoot the breeze.  We swap a few messages, but don't really connect because he is so busy.  Day of the show, I get there several hours early, and when I see him, Maddi is moving at a very brisk pace to do one of the million things on his list, and I barely get to talk to him before the show, if at all.  After the show, we maybe get a quick 30 seconds of "hey, how are you doing?  How's the new house?  How's the tour going?"  And then he is off again.  And then a day or so later, I get a PM along the lines of, "Hey, sorry we didn't connect."  The dude is just insanely busy.  And that goes for all of them.  The Reno show a couple of weeks ago was a nice exception to the norm, where I got to just sit down and shoot the breeze with him for a good 15 minutes or so after the show.