Favorite official concert video release

[MirrorMask]

Score, followed closely by Metropolis 2000.

[Renzo]

Breaking the Fourth wall followed by Live at Budokan

[goo-goo]

I really enjoy more of the backstage and bonus stuff they put out rather than the actual concert itself.

-Score - I was at the show too but I liked the documentary more
-Chaos in Motion - Loved all the behind the scenes stuff
-Syst. Chaos - The making of SC is awesome.
-5 yrs in a livetime / Live in Tokyo - I go nut with this release, specially with the commentary on.
-LaB - The behind the scenes and rig tours were pretty neat too.

I have gone back multiple times at the bonus features and seen them many times, even more than the actual concert.

[Lethean]

Score - I was there. Breaking the Fourth Wall is a close second though.

[Sycsa]

Budokan is a work of art. I never saw another live release that looks so good. The sound is great as well, too bad James' performance is just so-so. Instrumedley, Jordan - MP jam in BtL, JP's extended Hollow Years solo make it especially interesting compared to the rest.

Score is plagued by the out-of-tune orchestra and the setlist.

JP's rhythm guitar tone is way too muddy on 4th wall, and I'm not a huge fan of MM's drum sound either. The whole thing has way too much reverb.

[The Walrus]

Score's setlist rocks! I never noticed the orchestra being out of tune...

[Ben_Jamin]

Budakon for me. Its just a good dvd overall. The extras are top notch too. Plus the set list.

What ruins Score is the orchestra. Can't even listen to Vacant because it sounds like crap.

[Lethean]

I can ignore the orchestra being out of tune after a few minutes of listening. And I love the Score setlist.

[KevShmev]

Even though the Score first set looks weird on paper, it comes across pretty awesome on the DVD. Too bad the second set is very tedious to get through, otherwise it could have been the best.

Considering how good they both look and how on fire the band was at both shows, it really is too bad that Budokan and Score both didn't have much better set lists.

[gzarruk]

Don't know if you guys agree, but I think James was ON FIRE on LALP 

Voted for BTFW, anyway. Just love that setlist.

[DanielBiaxident]

Images and Words: Live in Tokyo & 5 Years in a Livetime: Pretty cool representation of those years.
Metropolis 2000: Scenes from New York: Awesome performance of SFAM.
Live at Budokan: My favourite. With this DVD I started to listening this band. Best visuals (24 or 25 FPS for the win) and IMHO, a real representation of how DT sounds live without re recorded vocals.
Score: Awesome setlist but poor visuals and too much processing (and re recording, BTW) on vocals.
Chaos in Motion: 2007–2008: Pass
Live at Luna Park: My second favourite. Pretty cool setlist, ADTOE in it's entirely live, but it has the same problem as Score in the visual and audio post-pro department.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Pass

[nattmorker]

Voted for BTFW, I love the setlist, besides it has the best MM drum sound IMO. I love TEI, TSF (Mangini is on fire on this one!), IT so much in this release. 

I like CiM because it's the only time I've seen a concert i've attended in an official release by any band.

Score and LaB are magical but my favorite is BTFW.

[PetFish]

Images and Words: Live in Tokyo
Really cool concept with the concert/candid/etc footage.

5 Years in a Livetime
I nice sequel to the format of the previous video and is a great archive of how wonky DT was during this time period.

Metropolis 2000: Scenes from New York
This would probably be my #1 if it wasn't for the "I just learned how to use video filters in my editor" overkill and not being HD really sucks cuz the performance was amazing.

Live at Budokan
This is the first time a "real" editor was able to sink their teeth into a DT project and it really shows what a pro can really do... and the crew that filmed it was amazing also.  The only negative for me is there's too many 6DoIT tracks when they ended up playing the whole thing on the next one.

Score
This gets my vote.  Everything is awesome about it.

Chaos in Motion: 2007–2008
 

Live at Luna Park
 

Breaking the Fourth Wall
Another overall great performance and edit and chock-a-block full of awesome tracks.

[Evai]

Images and Words: Live in Tokyo
Fantastic to see the boys 'firing on all cylinders', as they put it. Only downside is having to skip through the music videos each time (but I suppose back in those days you could only find the music videos by seeing them on MTV). JP's solos on songs like Take The Time and Under A Glass Moon are just astounding, his best work in terms of guitar wizardry.

5 Years in a Livetime
Not my favourite as it's such a mixture of different stuff, I prefer to see whole concerts. JLB's hair is pretty bad compared to LiT (this matters).

Metropolis 2000: Scenes from New York
I have watched this like three times more than the others. Seeing a concept album played in full, live, is just my favourite thing ever (RIP Astonishing bluray ... ah well, Jordan was playing a keyboard instead of a real piano so those ballads might've not sounded as lush)

Live at Budokan
Eh... Too much Train Of Thought. Hollow Years manages to be better than the studio version though.

Score
My favourite either has to be this or Metropolis 2000. I'm gonna have to go with Score though. The fact that it has Six Degrees AND Octavarium? omgomg. Also I love seeing Raise The Knife, since it's such a good song and I only really hear it when I watch this.

Chaos in Motion
 

Live at Luna Park
Some cool stuff on this one, it feels a little boring after Score though. For me, I like the raw excitement/energy of a rock band. The use of a click track and having so many piped in tracks to make it 'perfect' takes something away.

Breaking the Fourth Wall
God.... I don't... like the mix... At all  It's like 90% reverb. Something must be wrong with my ears because people tend to prefer this to LaLP. The song selection is really good though, wasn't expecting so much Awake.

[Drinktheater]

Wow Not much love for the Images and Words Tokyo?


I voted the Breaking the 4th wall its like one of their ultimate performance production wise and the setlist is great with the encore, I would say Score is a close second.  Actually it could be interchangeable since the Score has two Epic pieces, Octavarioum and SDOIT, I voted Breaking the 4th Wall because it has the better Orchestra and because of the Awake pieces and the awesome Orchestral rendition of the Scenes from a Memory songs!



If I will have top 3 live shows it would be.

1.Breaking the 4th Wall

2.Score.

3. Images and Words Tokyo.

[KevShmev]

Wow Not much love for the Images and Words Tokyo?

It's hard to compare it to true concert video releases, considering the concert footage is intertwined with the Images videos and the footage of them in Tokyo and whatnot.  Having said that, Live in Tokyo and 5 Years in a Livetime are probably the DT videos I have watched the most, partly because they are the oldest and partly because I watched concert/band DVDs more back then than I do now.

[El Barto]

Voted Budokan, but honestly I think Bucharest beats them all. Personally, I generally expect so-so performances from JLB so that doesn't bug me in Budokon or Bucharest. While it was nice to get a stellar performance out of him for Score it wasn't enough to make up for the detriment of the orchestra. As for the last two, as a live band post-Portnoy DT is a tattered shell of its former self. Not worth the bother when there are countless other concert DVDs I can watch.

[cramx3]

That Bucharest Official Bootleg really is awesome and stands up well against the other official releases.   Cool performances and different parts to some songs, awesome set list, more bonus songs that are cool and unique.  The only reason I would still go with Budokan over Bucharest is that being an official bootleg, the video/audio quality is lacking compared to something like Budokan which sounds and looks amazing so it's much easier and enjoyable to watch. 

[El Barto]

That Bucharest Official Bootleg really is awesome and stands up well against the other official releases.   Cool performances and different parts to some songs, awesome set list, more bonus songs that are cool and unique.  The only reason I would still go with Budokan over Bucharest is that being an official bootleg, the video/audio quality is lacking compared to something like Budokan which sounds and looks amazing so it's much easier and enjoyable to watch.

Absolutely. And the lack of proper editing is a huge blow to the Bucharest show. Official releases always show exactly what they need to show. Clearly it was just some TV station filming Bucharest with no appreciation for the songs. But the performance was fantastic, as was the setlist. I'll generally watch that before LAB. Score I'll usually just watch a few of the first songs and then blow it off.

[cramx3]

I loved Score when it was released but I really don't find myself going back to it as much.  I think it would help if they released in blu-ray like they did with Budokan, except Score needs it much more.  The video quality suffers from the audio being so big on that DVD.  The brighter lights of RCMH would make a high quality video of that show much more appeasing to my eyes.  Granted, that comment has nothing to do with the music/performance, but I take into account the quality and directing into my rankings of the video releases.  Now I don't expect the best out of an official bootleg, but say that concert had gotten the Budokan treatment, I think it might be the best release of theirs.

[TAC]

My favorite DVD is the Santiago '05 show. I love the small rig. It comes off as Zeppelin-esque. Great crowd, great performance.

[cramx3]

My favorite DVD is the Santiago '05 show. I love the small rig. It comes off as Zeppelin-esque. Great crowd, great performance.

The crowd going berserk right as the Root of All Evil starts is unlike anything else you will see on a DT DVD.