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Dom Robinson reviews
Sanctuary Digital Entertainment
- Cert:
- Cat.no: SVE 4001
- Running time: 125 minutes
- Year: 2001
- Pressing: 2002
- Region(s): All, PAL
- Chapters: 21
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: 7 languages (extras only)
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: 1 * DVD 9, 1 * DVD 5
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Interviews, A Day in the Life, Ross Halfin Photo Diary, Easter Egg
Director:
- Dean Karr
Producer:
- Arthur Gorson
Band:
- Bruce Dickinson: Vocals
Dave Murray: Lead and Rhythm Guitars
Janick Gers: Lead and Rhythm Guitars
Adrian Smith: Lead and Rhythm Guitars
Steve Harris: Bass
Nicko McBrain: Drums
Kiss goodbye to any of your neighbours speaking to you againonce you’ve played Iron Maiden: Rock in Rio at top volume at 2a.m.
For the first ever DVD concert released by the band named after an ancienttorture device, the 2-disc set contains their live concert performance filmedat last year’s Rock in Rio festival in front of 250,000 fans and a global TV audienceof millions, with sixty hours of footage (well it was shot with 14 cameras)edited down into a two-hour concert by bassist Steve Harris.
Everyone on stage looks to be enjoying themselves throughly and, for the mostpart, the camera footage used is presented plainly as it appears, althoughon occasion slo-mo shots have been used, which is a bit on the pointless side.
Iron Maiden headlined this festival, although they were supported by suchluminaries as Guns N’ Roses, Sting, Neil Young, Oasis and, ahem,Britney Spears.
Eighteen tracks make the line-up onscreen, with music from their most recentstudio album, Brave New World, as well as classics such as The NumberOf The Beast, 2 Minutes to Midnight and Run To The Hills. Conspicuousby its absence is Can I Play With Madness.
There are 21 chapters on the disc, with two intro spots before the concert andthe credits to follow, so the following tracks labelled 1-18 are actuallychapters 3-20.
1. The Wicker Man
2. Ghost of the Navigator
3. Brave New World
4. Wrathchild
5. 2 Minutes to Midnight
6. Blood Brothers
7. Sign of the Cross
8. The Mercenary
9. The Trooper10. Dream of Mirrors
11. The Clansman
12. The Evil That Men Do
13. Fear of the Dark
14. Iron Maiden
15. Number of the Beast
16. Hallowed Be Thy Name
17. Sanctuary
18. Run To The Hills
The worst possible time for the Senokot to kick in.Despite being filmed last year, this is one of the few concerts stillpresented in 4:3 fullscreen, so I’m presuming that’s how it was recorded. Thisis a shame as the colourful sets and expanisve crowd shots would’ve benefittedfrom the extra width of a widescreen filming. I’m sure I spotted some artifactsalong the way in some of the fast stage scenes, but the camera cuts quite fastat times so it’s understandable if the encoding has a little catching up to doon occasion.
Although the package is released on two discs, this hasn’t increased the overallcost of the set and it allows the concert to be played out in full-rateDolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 24-bit mastered surround sound, the latter being my preferenceand, thankfully, you still end up with the instruments only coming from thefront with echoing sounds and audience reaction reaching out to the rears.
I say “thankfully” because sometimes sound mixers use the addition of DTSand DD5.1 surround to throw the instruments all over the place to create anarticifial sound that wouldn’t have been heard at the concert.
Applaud or I’ll shoot you all dead with this guitar.The extras on disc 2 begin with The Band and what they get up to on aday off, such as Nicko McBrain playing golf and lead singer Bruce Dickinsonindulging in his passion for fencing. Each of these last between 6 to 10 minutes,but there’s only five as Nicko and Dave Murray share the same ‘day off’. Strangely,thanks to the way the disc has been encoded, you can’t access the individualtitles directly, nor will it allow you to measure the bitrate. Why do somecompanies do this? It stops you instantly getting to the any part in theextras that you want by clicking along the timeline.
A Day in the Life is more like 10 minutes in that day as the bandtravel between gigs. Following this is the Ross Halfin Photo Diary,a 7½-minute look at their tour across South America in 2001. As Halfin, theofficial band photographer explains, “If there’s bits missing, or gaps or itjumps too much for you, this is probably due to alcohol-fuelled memory loss.”and puts commentary to the pictures he took.
There’s also credits for the disc and a list of what you can expect on the website atIron Maiden.com
To access the hidden easter egg, head for the ‘photo diary’ and pressleft to reveal an angry face in which sound engineer Kevin “Caveman” Shirleyexplains briefly how their sound console has levels which go up to 12 and thatthey tried to make them go to 13, but they “blew the fucking shit right up”.Whoops!
The menus are nicely animated and scored and were created by the same designcompany who did those forLawrence Of ArabiaandThe Patriot.Containing some music or the band’s mascot, Eddie, being nasty, they are goodand feature DTS and DD5.1 sound, but they are only a few seconds of contenteach on a very short loop.
There are subtitles in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedishand Italian and the package comes in an attractive digipak which folds out toreveal the crowd and stage at the Rock in Rio gig on January 19th, 2001, althoughas Halfin pointed out, it was actually January 20th since the band went on stagefor their turn at 12.02a.m.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
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.