Oh my gosh! This is so awesome. So well-paced. The pauses, the soft vocals, the instrumentation, the jams, the melodies, the audience reaction (singing along), the power vocals, the harmonies. This is excellence. A real treat for the fan – a mesmerizing transport into the audio odyssey of this touching concept album of a life transformation (by the Gospel!). The casual prog rock fan has plenty to fall in love with here.
The DVD is filmed well. The mix is great. The lighting is just right. The background images split onto parallel curtains behind the band is really cool.
A great night was captured for us to relive.
By the way, the next time you go to a great concert, don’t bother recording it with your phone or tablet. Capture a moment or two for your friends, sure. But remember that the professionals capture this stuff with cuts, pans, wide shots, zooms for the solos. The audio is perfect. You’ll never match it on your little device. Sit back and enjoy the show you paid way too much to attend. Be in the moment. Watch the DVD later to remember the moment. There, I’ve said my piece. Now I have peace. 🙂
Starting off this epic DVD with a fly-by edit of interviews from the band, talking about the one album they never toured — Snow — and how Neal’s departure affected them puts the significance of this performance in perspective.
All the dynamics that you’d expect from a veteran songwriter and seasoned group of veterans is here. The energy rises and falls and makes room at just the right moments for tenderness and poignant story changes, like the boy’s beginning, the fury of life’s confusion and the desperate cry for peace, answers and reason to the joyous resolution of heart, soul and salvation.
“All is Vanity,” “I’m Dying” and “Devil’s Got my Throat” eventually gives way to “Made Alive/Wind at my Back.”
Quite honestly, it’s a journey and conclusion that every muso (faith or not) needs to experience. If you haven’t discovered this gem of an album, now’s your second chance. The visuals of this performance is just a major helping of bonus perspective. If it were possible for a DVD to be better than actually being there for the performance, this might be an example.
I don’t know what I liked the best. I liked the double drum solos, the antics of the soloists — whether on keyboards, guitar, horns — or the facial expressions of Neal as he acts out his passion play. The fact that the music is so amazing and spot on might be the cream of the crop. What we have here is not just some reunion show for an album they never performed. This is the whole tour package. While not as elaborate and grandiose as The Wall, this is a work of art and it’s great.
Remember, as a young Christian rocker or metalhead, when you saw a performance or heard some music and you thought, ‘Man, if the world could just hear this! If they could just get a glimpse of the passion, emotion and power of the life-transforming message of redemption put to music…’ Or do you recall praying for a musical hero, thinking, ‘If they got saved and just told their story, people would be so impacted.’ While Spock’s Beard was only on top of the smaller prog rock world at the time (2002) , this is like the fulfillment of a prayer like that. A major player and talent found Jesus and told his story in an epic, double-disc masterpiece. Anyone familiar with this album already knows this, but oh the possibilities of sharing this gem!
The encore disc (which shows, among other things, the fun, back-to-the-audience photo of the band pictured here) and the behind-the-scenes disc only add to the fun and special-ness of this night.
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