LIVE AT BUDOKAN

I've had the triple CD for several years now so when I bought the Live At Budokan DVD I knew what I was getting. We all know that this band is a technical tour de force but listening to it is one thing and seeing them perform it is quite another. This very much blew my mind.

The first thing that you notice on starting this DVD is the scale of the venue, The Budokan is massive, I didn't know prog bands could fill such stadiums anymore but DT has succeeded. But enough of the venue, what of the show, and boy do these guys know haw to put on a show. Anyone that has read my review of the CD Live At Budokan will know that I loved it, and the performance translates to the DVD very well. What this adds is (obviously) the visuals, with lighting used well to illustrate the mood and feeling of the songs and the big screens behind the band are used extremely well to either show some of the music videos that the band have made in the past (like the one for Pull Me Under) or to show a landscape, montage of images and videos and other CGI images to complement the songs with the lighting.

Its also worth noting that, though there are still some songs that I don't like (most notably This Dying Soul), being able to see what the band is doing helps me to find a new level of admiration for some parts of songs. The two songs that benefit from this most are Beyond This Life and the Keyboard solo. You just appreciate what's happening more when you can see it, and you can also see just how much the band is getting into this performance, something that is very important to making a good performance.

This is a stunning show were the band go all out to prove just how good they are at what they do, and you can see that they are thoroughly enjoying it as well, a 5 star DVD.