Tina Turner – Live In Amsterdam: The Wildest Dreams Tour on PAL Laserdisc

Tina Turner – Live in Amsterdamis the PAL Laserdisc release of Tina’sWildest Dreams Tour to accompany her latest album, featuring a numberof tracks from it as well as a healthy selection of greatest hits from the past30 years. Tina lifted the roof off the new Amsterdam Arena for three nights inSeptember 1996, in front of 150,000 people on this European tour, on which sheperformed over 150 shows to 3,000,000 people.

Tina, real name Annie Mae Bullock, had a few hits with her husband Ike backin the late 60’s and early 70’s, the most notable being River Deep MountainHigh (No.3 in 1966) and Nutbush City Limits (No.4 in 1973). It wasin late 1983 that Tina began to establish her career as a solo artist, kickingoff with Let’s Stay Together (No.6), and following that along witha number of other songs that have become her established anthems such asPrivate Dancer (No.26, 1984) which was written by Dire Straits’ MarkKnopfler, What’s Love Got To Do With It (No.3, 1984), which went on totitle the film of her life story with her brutal husband, We Don’t NeedAnother Hero (No.3, 1985), the theme tune to Mel Gibson’s film Mad MaxBeyond Thunderdome which also saw a starring role for the singer, TheBest (No.5, 1989), and Goldeneye (No.5, 1995), the theme tune tothe most recent James Bond film.

I went to see Tina Turner in 1990 at the Birmingham NEC during her ForeignAffair tour and it was definitely an entertaining experience, especiallyfrom a lady who was closing in on the age of 50. Now in her sixth decade, sheshows no sign at all of calming down giving the stage dancers, 30 years herjunior, a run for their money in the choreographed routines.

Watching a live concert in person is always different than watching it at home,and the two can’t really be compared. At home, the Tina Turner experience iscertainly worth checking out, with close-ups aplenty of the singer and her band,as well as occasional audience shots and a few far-shots of the stage. It mustbe a task-and-a-half to create an engaging version of a live show and put iton film, and director David Mallet has achieved just that.

Picture quality is excellent, the sound rocks, and chaptering is well donewith, as you’d expect, one track per song. There are no extras on this disc,though while the sleeve states: Bonus Track: Something Beautiful Remainsthis is the song she did for an encore, the end credits rolling at the end ofthe previous track, On Silent Wings.

There are 21 chapters, one for each song, and the track listing is as follows :

Side Two

I gave this disc a 4/5 overall as not quite every Tina song is my cup of tea,those not making the grade for me including Missing You, The Best andOn Silent Wings. However, for anyone with a Laserdisc player wanting toshow off a good concert reproduction, you’d be hard pressed to find somethingto top this one, and if you’re a die-hard Tina fan, this is an essentialpurchase.

Film : 4/5
Picture : 5/5
Sound : 5/5

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Dom Robinson

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.

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