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Dom Robinson reviews
Everything Everything
BMG
- Cat.no: JBO 1012568P
- Cert: E
- Running time: 89 minutes
- Year: 2000
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 0, PAL
- Chapters: 12
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Stereo
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Live Tomato Video Art, Internet Links, Out-takes,2 Bonus Tracks, DVD-ROM material, Keyboard Driven Vision Mixer, Facility toprogram your own concert
Director:
- Dai Hirose
Producer:
- Masa Matsuzaki and Keigo Kobayashi
Underworld Live: Everything Everythinghas, at its heart, a near-90 minute concert in which the masters of the mixgive it all they’ve got. You may think it about as interesting as watchingpaint dry when it comes to a few bods on stage tweaking their synthesisers asa loud crowd in front scream out for more, but while the music delights theaural senses, so do the visuals please the eyes with bizarre things overlaidand in the case of Born Slippy clips of the video are mixed in withthe concert footage.
If you’re hosting a party and don’t want your guests to stare at the people,use the multi-angle option or that from the main menu to select the “LiveTomato Video Art” instead: weird images aplenty to blend in perfectly with themusic.
Of the tracks at the concert, the first, Juanita/Kiteless, sounds likeit has been sampled to produce Azzido Da Bass’ Dooms Night single(No.8, Oct 2000), Push Upstairs is a heavy piano-basedtune, the promo for which features aplenty on MTV2, starting with acamera panning over a lake, Rez/Cowgirl is the one that features anendless “an eraser of love” and “everything everything” chantand of course, Born Slippy Nuxx is a remix of theTrainspottingtechno classic and one of my favourite dance tracks of all time.
Another thing to note in this initial part of the review is that the concertand the ‘live tomato video art’ each contain plenty of strobe lighting, forthose who suffer epilepsy.
Their singles chart history to date (October 2000) is as follows :
Dec 93No.63Spikee / Dogman GoJun 94No.57Dark and LongMay 95No.52Born SlippyMay 96No.24Pearl’s GirlJul 96No. 2Born Slippy (re-mix)Nov 96No.22Pearl’s Girl (re-issue)Dec 96No.74Born Slippy (re-entry of re-mix)Mar 99No.12Push UpstairsJun 99No.21JumboAug 99No.17King of Snake
An anamorphic 16:9 widescreen ratio – something I wasn’t expecting, but it’sa boon to see it so well-used for a concert DVD, with no artifacts and clean,bold, strong colours appearing throughout.Not quite sure about the average bitrate. The maximum it can be is 10Mb/s.Few DVDs reach that but this one has sent the bitrate off the scale claimingan average reading of 10.1Mb/s. Hmmm…
Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Stereo flavours for all, the former providinga much more impressive performance, as your neighbours will discover. On theday I’m writing this review it’s approaching midnight, so it’s safe to saymy amplifier is NOT on full power, but jeez, just think what could be achievedif it was!
Chapters :The chaptering is rather odd. There’s 12 for the whole concert, but just 9tracks. This leaves two at the start spread over the first minute whichserve no purpose, plus one at the end for the closing credits.
The track listing as is follows :
- 1. Juanita/Kiteless
- 2. Cups
- 3. Push Upstairs
- 4. Pearl’s Girl
- 5. Jumbo
- 6. Shudder/King of Snake
- 7. Born Slippy Nuxx
- 8. Rez/Cowgirl
- 9. Moaner
Subtitles :There are no subtitles as such, but three languages for the menu options(English, Welsh and Japanese) and your choice is also used during the credits.This is rather an odd choice, but then they’re not the most conventional bandaround. Extras :I’ve already described the Live Tomato Video Art. There are fourminutes (not five, if I want to be pedantic) of Out-takes or ratherconcert and soundcheck clips and some very weird stuff indeed.
The Program your own Gig section works very simply but also aseffectively. Basically, each track from the concert, including the accompanying”Live Tomato Video Art”, has been allocated its own title. The selected titlesare then played in the order as programmed. This requires the entire gig tobe on the disc twice, or at least just the music tracks, but it’s worth it.
Two bonus tracks, with their own weird occasionally-changing visuals,Kittens (9 mins) and Rowla (8 mins) are included.
The DVD-ROM material takes up at least 300Mb of hard disc spaceand as well as active weblinks, the Keyboard Driven Vision Mixer(known on as a ‘wongizer’) and the Dogboy section will make you feellike you’re on some kind of narcotics. A few other items are available inthis section too including audio streams and seemingly a video stream (didn’twork for me though).
Note that when it came to installing the DVD-ROM material, it first triesto dump the content on your C: drive. I didn’t have enough space and thankfullyit allowed me to select another destination, since I thought it was going towipe out the remaining 300Mb of space I had left.
Of course, where you want the actually “Everything Everything” program togo afterwards is something you can specify and be assured it will deletethe original setup program from your hard drive, thus releasing anypreviously-hogged space.
Menu :
Subtle coloured-block animation with the sound of wind blowing in thebackground. Work that one out. Looks damn cool though.
For £19.99, this DVD actually represents better value than going tothe concert itself. I’ve tried watching this concert and the accompanyingweird imagery in the dark, but even if I’ve damaged my eyesight at all itwill have been worth it.
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.