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Reviews of: The Police - Certifiable (2 x DVD and 2 x CD)Starring:
Reviews Great stuff Ok I'll keep this review somewhat shorter than the huge long reviews here!....Brilliant DVD/CD the concert is superbly filmed with the audio via the 5.1 being amazing (and not overloud as some have said here). The 3 policemen are clearly all excellent musicians, Copeland smiles through the entire performance like a cheshire cat!....his move from the cymbals to the drums area on King of Pain is almost commedic! All the songs are given a refresh with Summers given more room for his guitar work than during the bands heyday. The "better than therapy" documentary on the bonus disk is well worth the watch but a little over long, there are only so many times I can watch/listen to the band describe their new working relationship, though there are some great moments here too, mainly the acoustic jam backstage with John Meyer as Summers teaches him a new part for Message in a Bottle. The bonus disc also contains some photography from Andy Summers and an unknown photographer presumably hired by the band. I'm sorry to say I found the images very dull and merely a space filler on the dvd. (I also thought the photography on the packaging to be quite poor to say the least!) All in all though an excellent concert superbly produced and a great momento for those of us who went to see the band on the tour. 2009-01-04 Where's the crowd noise? Yes, okay, great to see them back even without any new music (shame on them!) Only gripe realy is the sound is too clean throughut and rather fails to knock you over. Unfortunately it is so clean sound-wise you can hardly hear the fans. Compare this with, for example, the DVD of Rush in Rio. Ok, Rush sound is heavier anyway overall but the crowd reaction is fantastic. The Buenos Aires-Police crowd are like comparing the Emirates Stadium with the Maracana. 2009-01-03 Brilliant, faultless performance, shame about packaging Having seen a few concerts of their 2007-2008 tour, and heard plenty of bootlegs , I can see why they cherry-picked the Buenos Aires concert, I don't think there is a single bum note! Speaking as a musician, I know The Police songs, and how hard they are to get right, especially in their re-arranged format, with Andy using lots of string-pad effects (which are extremely unforgiving if you hit the wrong note). Playing guitar or bass, singing and using pedals like the Moog Taurus, and trying to engage the audience in one is demanding enough, without the technically challenging aspects of playing interesting chords or bass lines in time with off-beat Reggae infused drumming. Needless to say, in quite a few concerts, there are bum notes here and there, or occasionally step out of time (which is highly forgivable, and only really spotted by a well trained ear), here though, it is as good as if it came out of a studio - even Andy's backing vocal is in tune! The set list is the early 2007 one, i.e. Synchronicity II and Walking in your footsteps as opposed to Demolition Man and whatever else. I prefer these two songs, so I'm glad they're covered in this concert - their reworking of Walking in your footsteps (as with Walking on the Moon) is astounding, and works well in a stadium - the reverberations add constructively to the song, although stadium acoustics are missing from the recordings (no bad thing as with other tracks it ruins them). The actual concert coverage is spot-on - you get shots of all three at the right time of them doing/playing something, unlike the Synchronicity tour DVD (which seemed to focus predominantly on Sting or the mullet-wielding redneck audience, and also suffered with over-used cheesy graphics). If anybody can find fault with this DVD, they must live a miserable life without ever experiencing satisfaction! Included in this package is the excellent Rockumentary "Better Than Therapy" with plenty of amusing anecdotes, as well as a nice bit of jamming, including with a few artists for the Live 8 gig. Its a nice contrast to their "Around the World tour" concert and rockumentary of 79, e.g. how they have changed - wizened, yet always thinking of different ways to play something, and iterating until it can no longer be improved. You also get a sense of just how much work they put into it, rehearsing all day every day for 4 months - remember they hadn't touched most of these songs for almost 30 years. And its no minor gamble, if the concert went badly, then a new generation of listeners would probably be switched off, and their musical legacy tarnished, something they acknowledge in the DVD. And well they did play. Not to be missed is a hilarious anecdote of the last time they played in Argentina, when Andy kicked one of the many draconian police guards on the shoulder for ill-treating a sobbing woman. Needless to say, Stu's version of events is somewhat creative - Andy's actions helping to over-through the regime etc. Andy, usually very benign, had to deal with these guards after the show... you'll have to watch the DVD to know what happened! The two audio CDs of the concert appear to be mixed well to me, I think the other reviewer complaining about "VIP" is being over-critical - the usual technical term for making everything the same volume is called "normalisation", but it is not entirely the case here - whenever Andy does a solo, it is at slightly higher gain just as it is live - and there aren't any really quiet parts in any of their songs (either studio album or live), except at the beginning of Invisible Sun, and it sounds quieter than the rest of the song to me (actually the levels on my stereo VU Meter confirm that) - so I don't think theres really a mixing "fault". Thus, personally, I love the CDs and am glad I can enjoy the concert on my hifi or car stereo without having to rip the audio from the DVD. In my point of view, the only problem with this set is the packaging. There is nothing indicating set lists, or CD track listings, like there is in the Synchronicity tour DVD, no other peripheral info about the concert, just a little booklet of some tour pictures. It would also have been nice if the audio CDs had their own CD jewel case, rather than being thrown in a standard format 4-disc DVD case. I dare say that would have been a little more expensive, but most police fans who paid £60 - £120 for a ticket aren't going to begrudge spending a little more for a better quality product. I assume I'm not the only one who stores audio CDs in one rack, and DVDs in another, I mean, the half-VHS DVD case is one factor here, as well as natural inclination to separate music and film. I also think it would make it a more "special" / collectors edition. Anyway minor niggles, the superb footage is what counts. Some memorable Better Than Therapy quotes: Stu: "This gong is bigger than Neil Peart's gong... Bigger even than John Bonham's gong... Don't think for a minute that I need a big gong... 'cause I don't... But I have one..." Andy: "Over the last 20 years we've built up this mythology... so you have to be prepared to play, and play well" Stu: "All of my instincts take me into realms that don't make Sting happy... and we have to... sort of.. deal with that" Something else I quite liked to see in Better Than Therapy - even after all these years of playing (Andy and Stu had successful music careers outside of The Police as well as Sting), they are still very nervous about performing, and have to psyche themselves up before going on, Andy even having a wee dram of whisky from a hip flask before going on - Despite being at the pinnacle of their craft, these guys are still all very human. 2008-12-23 Excellent... but I want MORE! Strange there has not been much publicity for this release after one of the highest grossing tours of all time. This is an excellent document of the tour - very good stadium show captured on camera and excellent sound. Also the concert is well filmed (free from too many audience and far off crane shots). Stewart's drum kit sounds great and he for me is the star of the show. The CD's also sound fantastic and are a reminder of how timeless these songs are - they really dont sound dated and some sound better than the original recorded versions (i.e. Wrapped Around Your Finger, Walking In your Footsteps and even Walking on the Moon sound more dynamic and edgy than thier recorded versions). The documentary 'Better than Therapy' is fascinating but far too short (only 50 mins) and ends mid-tour. Other than two photo galleries there are no other extras which is a real shame (for this it looses a star - nothing to do with the music or performance). Would have been nice for the fans to have had some of the songs performed on the tour but not at this concert on this release (i.e Beds Too Big, Spirits etc.). I think this is the best record of the tour we are going to get and for me it delivers. I think I'll be watching and listening to it again and again - cant ask for much more than that - good price as well for four discs. 2008-12-11 loudness war strikes again Great shows, some say the best of the tour. But the audio was mastered by a VIP (very incompetent person) and sounds "too loud", compressed and lacks detail and dynamics. Volume stays the same all along the concert...sad 2008-11-25 |
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