HiRez Poll Wilson, Brian - LIVE AT THE ROXY [DVD-A]

Got this one at Best Buy the other day. It is a live concert done in 5.1 HiRez, and comes with a DD surround track and a 96/24 HiRez Stereo track.

For surround, this is pretty much your "classic live" treatment. You won't find sax solos in the rear, but there is quite a nice image of sound throughout the disc, with the audience clearly defined in the rears.

While I am not a huge Beach Boys fan, I know most of the "hits" and have been aware of BW's musical talents for a long time. I actually liked his DTS release "Imagination". This concert is VERY likeable, he does most of the Beach Boys standards, as well as some of his own stuff. There are 30 tracks (29 songs) and lots of "stage banter", and Brian sounds GREAT. The band is exceptional and it is pretty nice to hear these old songs being sung live in the 2000's and have them sound so good.

There are no lyrics , but each song has it's own still photo to go with it. They are pretty cool, and kinda match the music. For one song, there is a shot of a radio station "Top 40" playlist, with SURFIN' SAFARI at #1! It's cool to look at the other song titles.......

The fidelity is excellent, although at first it sounded awfully bright. But the music itself is remarkable for a live show, and it is a very pleasant listen.

If you are not into the Beach Boys, you may want to pass on this one, but if you are the least bit interested in the music, this is a good one to get. Remember, it is not a surround specatacular - but for sonics and music it is a winner in my book.

JonUrban said:

Got this one at Best Buy the other day. It is a live concert done in 5.1 HiRez, and comes with a DD surround track and a 96/24 HiRez Stereo track.

For surround, this is pretty much your "classic live" treatment. You won't find sax solos in the rear, but there is quite a nice image of sound throughout the disc, with the audience clearly defined in the rears.

While I am not a huge Beach Boys fan, I know most of the "hits" and have been aware of BW's musical talents for a long time. I actually liked his DTS release "Imagination". This concert is VERY likeable, he does most of the Beach Boys standards, as well as some of his own stuff. There are 30 tracks (29 songs) and lots of "stage banter", and Brian sounds GREAT. The band is exceptional and it is pretty nice to hear these old songs being sung live in the 2000's and have them sound so good.

There are no lyrics , but each song has it's own still photo to go with it. They are pretty cool, and kinda match the music. For one song, there is a shot of a radio station "Top 40" playlist, with SURFIN' SAFARI at #1! It's cool to look at the other song titles.......

The fidelity is excellent, although at first it sounded awfully bright. But the music itself is remarkable for a live show, and it is a very pleasant listen.

If you are not into the Beach Boys, you may want to pass on this one, but if you are the least bit interested in the music, this is a good one to get. Remember, it is not a surround specatacular - but for sonics and music it is a winner in my book.

Click to expand...

I just bought this and it sounds good in DD 5.1! Too bad I can't listen to it on my new Pioneer 563 in "Avanced Resolution 5.1". It's just like the T-Rex DVD-A, it has no output. Is this a hardware or software problem?

One word, and one word only. WINNER!

The fidelity is amazing. The rears are mainly used for audience noise, but the sound quality is where this disc really shines. A quantum leap over the original BriMel CD or the Warner reissue. A 9.

I feel impelled to preface my comments with the fact that I am a huge Beach Boys and Brian Wilson fan. "Pet Sounds" on DVD-A has been one of my favorite hi-rez releases and the 2005 "Smile" release has provided me immeasurable joy, and continues to be in heavy rotation in both my home system and in my car.

With that said, I look back on the recent "re-evolution" of Brian Wilson as a live performer with a certain amount of pride, in that I feel honored to be allowed to witness his artistic growth after all this time. I mean, if you look at "Live At The Roxy" in 2000, "Pet Sounds Live" in 2003 and finally "Smile Live" in 2005, there is a definite and focused period of growth and rebirth for Brian.

As with any type of substantive growth, there is going to be stumbling and falling. So, it is with some amount of trepidation that I point to Brian's own stumbling and falling on what I term a "growth document" titled "Live At The Roxy".

I won't belabor the point other than to say that Brian has surpassed all expectations with his delivery of "Smile" last year. Concentrating on the positives of "Live At The Roxy", the recording brilliantly documents the occasion. As with any live recording, one important measure is whether or not the acoustical event is captured accurately. In this case it is. You almost feel like you are there, in the Roxy. Thus, the surround recording succeeds to a large extent.

As far as the performance goes, in addition to considering the context of Brian's rebirth, we must also consider the context of all that has come before, including the awesome legacy of the Beach Boys. In this context, the artistic merit of the performance falls well short of expectations.

In the final analysis, "Live At The Roxy" is an important document that is accurately captured in this surround release. All things considered, and in the interest of objectivity, I cannot rate this disc, for purchase considerations, any higher than four points.

I have so many discs, I can't listen to what I have very often and for some odd reason, I bought this. I have 100 discs I haven't listened to in 6 months that I like better. This troubled brilliant man was probably never a good performer live. Who knows how many takes before he can get a studio recording that works. The performance here is not much, the music is fine, and many of the songs great. It is very good for a live recording of a very mediocre performance. I played it once, who knows if and when I will play it again. He offers almost incoherrent babble between songs here.

Chris

Things got better.....

It was later reported that when Brian had actually finished Smile and it was played live in it's entirety that a number of ghosts (doubts?) stopped haunting him and he calmed down immensely.

Remember that he was deemed the genius and when the band pretty much rejected that album out of hand, he cracked.

He was still coming out of his cocoon at the time of this concert...

If anyone is a huge Beach Boys fan and Brian Wilson fan then this is definitely worth tracking down.
It is far from perfect as others have said this was early on in Brian Wilson's return to the stage and some of the talk in between songs reflects that but what you get is a snap shot of where he was at at this time in his life and boy are the songs ever good to listen to in lossless. I did not get this till now because of the low ratings here and that there were hardly any positive comments. I saw that Guy R from here was selling it at SHF and I bought it from him, thanks Guy .
For a live recording I would rate this as very good, as its crisp, mostly front centric as that seems to be how most people like to do the live 5.1's and this was a early 2000 Dvda but there is a bit of action in rears besides crowd noise so its not completely front centric.
The backing band does a very good job on the instruments and those amazing harmonies come through on this from the band. I think Brian does a pretty good job with lead vocals live as well, its not perfect but sometimes I like that as shows you the difference between studio polish and here you get that live rawness.
I am giving this a 9 as need to balance out the polls here as there is no way this should be rated under a 7 and maybe someone else will give this a chance as there aren't to many Brian Wilson/Beach Boys disk's to choose from in surround.
My recommendation is mostly based on this is such fun happy music to listen to and put a smile on my face on this weekend's surround listening experience. I will be relistening to this one in the future.