!!!SPOILERS!!!!!I´ve got it!
I have listened to some tracks and watched the (way to short) documentary.
The mix is actually better than expected (but not great). I listened to the BluRay with high quality headphones, and i can hear the keyboards fine most of the time. The biggest problem is that overall the guitars are WAAAY to loud. The bass is actually the instrument that gets most lost in the mix. Im not too sure if i like JP´s guitar-tone on this release too much. The stereo-effect he uses takes too much space in the mix, and it´s painfully dominant.
There are some mixing issues here and there that should have been fixed up.
JLB´s breathing is very audible during the intro to Spirit carries on, and the guitars are very strangely balanced in that song.
Im very disappointed that i never actually hear the Taurus-synth that JM is playing a lot of the time, and the backing vocals are some times not audible.
The crowd is way to low in the mix. Like, during The Test That Stumped Them All, James goes:
"The intro tape begins to roll" crowd goes
"crickets". But you can definitely see the crowd go
"YAAAAAAAY"!The same goes for The Spirit Carries On. You can see the entire crowd singing their lungs out on the beginning, but you can barely hear them. That is a shame, and takes a lot of the live-energy out of the experience.
There are some good things about this release though:The picture-quality looks great, and most of the time i am able to enjoy the concert despite the wierd balanced mix. The performances are stellar, and i don´t get those who feel like there is a "lack of energy" from the band itself. Everybody seems really energetic to me! Especially JP, JLB and MM.
James Labrie is on fire! Not as polished as on Score, but miles beyond Chaos in Motion. Great job!
MM is great! What a fun guy, and what a great player! Sometimes i kind of miss the MP-"feel" of songs, like on TSCO, but that is probably because im so used to hearing that song with MP.
The documentary, while too short, is kind of cool. It continues the "cheesy reality-show"-theme we´ve come to love
However, it shows how much fun the guys are having, and how much of an impact MM has had on the overall chemistry within the band.
JM seems very reserved during the dinner, but for all of you who have watched the Google+-chat, you should know that he was actually sick that day.
So yeah. A fun BluRay, but sadly the mix is dragging the overall quality down.
I rank the DVDs:
Score
Scenes from New York
Budokan
Tokyo
Luna Park
5 years in a livetime
Chaos in motion