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Dom Robinson reviews
Live at the Beacon Theatre
Sony Music
- Cat.no: 501719
- Cert: E
- Running time: 109 minutes
- Recorded May 30th, 1998
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Stereo
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English, French
- Presented in Fullscreen
- 16:9-enhanced: No
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Biographies for James and the band, Two music videos, Discography, Interview
James Taylor: Live at the Beacon Theatre is the full-length concert recorded on May 30th, 1998 at New York’s Beacon Theatre. It was the first-ever concert to be broadcast live nationwide on the PBS Network in the US, but this DVD contains 25 tracks, including four which were not broadcast on TV.
James Taylor has done the musical rounds for over thirty years and this performance contains classics such as Your Smiling Face, You’ve Got A Friend and Fire And Rain, covers of How Sweet It Is, Up on the Roof and Not Fade Away, as well as songs from his Grammy-award-winning album, Hourglass and the track Ananas does not appear on the VHS release.
Surprisingly, despite his popularity, the Guinness Book of Hit Singles only counts three of his songs as Top 75 chart hits :
The picture has no artifacts but loses a point for obviously being an NTSC recording and, as you’d expect, it won’t yield a perfect quality in PAL. The concert is presented in fullscreen and has an excellent average bitrate of 8.25Mb/s, often peaking around 9Mb/s.
The sound comes in Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 and is crystal clear.
Extras. :
Chapters : There are 27 chapters on the disc: 25 songs with credits to buffer them at either side. The songs on the disc are as follows :
2. Another Day
3. Daddy’s All Gone
4. Everyday
5. Mighty Storm
6. Only a Dream in Rio
7. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight
8. Your Smiling Face
9. Jump Up Behind Me
10. Shower the People
11. How Sweet It Is
12. Fire and Rain
13. Me and My Guitar
14. (I’ve Got To) Stop Thinkin’ ‘Bout That
15. Handy Man
16. You’ve Got a Friend
17. Mexico
18. Little More Time With You
19. Line ’em Up
20. Up on the Roof
21. Ananas
22. Steamroller Blues
23. Belfast To Boston
24. Wandering
25. Not Fade Away The bizarre thing is that all of these appear on the disc twice – once topped and tailed by logos and credits and the other on their own for the scene selection menu, which is pointless as the chapters were already on the disc for the main programme. Sony haven’t done that before so I can’t think what prompted them to do it this time.
Languages & Subtitles : As stated before, the sound is in Stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1 and lyrics are available in English and French.
Menu :
The menus are static and silent, each one containing a different picture which is usually of James Taylor.
Overall, James Taylor puts on an engaging concert and any fan will find it well worth a watch. It might not have a barrel-load of extras, but those that are here are well-chosen ones. FILM : **** PICTURE QUALITY: **** SOUND QUALITY: ***** EXTRAS: ** ——————————- OVERALL: ***½
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.
Check out the Sony Music DVD Web site.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.