BE LIVE

This is one of the DVD's which every prog fan should own. The performance is raw, brutal, beautiful, dynamic, and in many ways, perfect. Pain of Salvation have always had an incredible theatricality to their sound as a band, and this performance, with it's handycam interludes, costume changes, and dynamic stage set up, complete with orchestra, do such brilliant music justice on an entirely new level.

Here, the band play their progressive rock conceptual magnum opus - BE. This 70 minute beast of an album is transposed nearly perfectly into a live performance here, with the complete orchestra, instrumentation, spoken word interludes and radio broadcasts. The transition from studio to live is done flawlessly, meticulously and in a truly outstanding fashion which few other artists have done so perfectly.

The performances themselves are brilliant, some tracks contain slightly different overall sounds, some skip a beat or two, some have entirely new lyric sets (Pluvius Aestivus) or added spoken word sections (Martius/Nauticus), all compelling well done. Front man Daniel Gildenlow has one of the strongest voices of all time, and his operatic timbre really shines on many of these tracks, Iter Impius in particular. The rest of the band is spot on for the entire show, with Johan's blistering guitar solos and subtle rhythms sitting perfectly amongst the great orchestral work.

The video quality on this DVD is not brilliant, although it is sufficient. The copy I have only offers 4:3 screen ratio, although this is no real problem with modern resizing technology. The colours seem somewhat washed out in some of the darker scenes, but nothing distracting. The audio quality is fantastic, although oddly is mixed in 5.1 although presented in 5.1 with a purposely muted center channel. The other usual options for stereo are available here, although BE really is a better experience in surround. It is worth mentioning the DVD package comes in a wonderful slip case, with a live CD of the show included, as well as a booklet with many notes about the album and its concept which will be of interest to fans and new comers alike (myself at the time of acquiring this goody).

Truly progressive, and truly brilliant. An absolutely essential live package.

5/5.

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