Aerosmith

Aerosmith have had a stop-start career in the UK, their biggest hit to date being No.13for both Love In An Elevator (Sept 89) and a re-release of “Pink”, nearlyten years later in June 99, the original position being in the Xmas chart of 1997, notas the Xmas No.1, but more the Xmas No.38. Other notable hits include a re-issue for“Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” (No.20, Feb 90), “Crazy” (No.23, Nov 94) – if mainlyfor an ‘interesting’ promo featuring actresses Alicia Silverstone and Steven’sdaughter Liv Tyler, also taking in 1990’s “Rag Doll” which just missed the UKTop 40 (No.42, April 90).

There’s no doubting the quality of the encoding which is up the usual high standard ofSony, as can be seen on the promo video clips when the only imperfection is thequality of the NTSC-to-PAL conversion which could be better. However, the rest of thedocumentary is camcorder footage shot on film that looks like it was bought fromHonest Joe’s for a dollar per film cartridge. Maybe they wanted it to have that”rough-and-ready” look, but it just looks rough.

The average bitrate is an excellent 8.39Mb/s on side one and a consistent 8.38Mb/son side two. Given that the concert is in fullscreen, the disc is obviously notanamorphic – a process used for prints with a ratio of 16:9 or wider which allowsextra resolution on widescreen televisions.

The sound fares little better. When the promo clips come on, it’s time to wake upthe neighbours. Those moments don’t come often enough though and the rest is justchat from the band. There are choices for Stereo and Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround).

There are 32 chapters, covering just about all of the separate incidents as the albumis made, plus a few promo clips. The track listing is as follows :

Side One

1. Programme start
2. Rehearsal clips
3. More rehearsals
4. “Monkey on my Back” rough
5. Brad’s guitar
6. Guitar Jam with Joe & Brad
7. Steven on phone
8. “Don’t get mad, get even”
9. Steven & Joe talk about Bruce Fairbairn
10. Steven & Joe talk about demos before Vancouver
11. “Janie’s Got A Gun” demo
12. “Janie’s Got A Gun”
13. Steven on music’s importance
14. Band comments on the past
15. “My Girl” rough
16. Overdub session
17. Band talks about their songs
18. Steven talks about his inspiration for “Love In An Elevator”

Side Two

1. “Love In An Elevator”
2. Titling of “Pump” album
3. Album playback for record company
4. Meeting with John Kalodner & Band on lyrics
5. “What it Takes”
6. John Kalodner & Steven talk about new album
7. Band & John Kalodner discuss cover art
8. Steven overdubs keyboards
9. Brad discusses mixing/horns rehearse
10. Joe rehearses & talks about next record
11. “The Other Side” rough
12. Intro to “The Other Side”
13. “The Other Side”
14. “Pump”‘s achievements

Languages/Subtitles :

All chat from the band, as well as the songs, come in English, not to mentionthe fruity language on occasion. There are no subtitles though which would havehelped when conversations from the band tail off and you can’t quite make out whatthey’ve said.

Menu :

The menu is static and functional, but bland.

Overall, I was really looking forward to this before I watched it but it does makefor disappointing viewing. Promo clips, the few that there are, generally getinterrupted by studio footage either about the song or other things. This especiallygoes for “Janie’s Got A Gun”, a song which never made the UK Top 40, but reachedNo.4 in the US. From what I remember the video was very intriguing and it was alsoquoted as being something different by the band. How annoying then that all we get isthe first chorus before it cuts back to the band bickering amongst themselves again.

It may have been better to release the music video compilation to accompany the ‘Best Of’album, “Big Ones”, which was called “Big Ones You Can Look At”, as thepromo clips were the best thing about this release, although that appears to have comefrom the BMG stable and not Sony. Big fans of Aerosmith will already have this 10-year-olddocumentary on tape so there aren’t going to be too many people wanting to own it on DVDunless it was released for a budget price of about a tenner and their tape had worn out.

It’s also a flipper – something I can overlook if the content takes my mind off it and anatural break occurs, but here the break comes between Steven Tyler talking about “LoveIn An Elevator” and the actual clip of the song!