Spock's Beard Reunion Snow Live

[marabus]

Hi ,

I was just curious if anyone here saw 1 of the 3 shows performed last year and if so what are your thoughts?

Thanks,
Pete

[JKL2000]

This thread doesn't run up to the actual event, but if you're interested in reading some of the pre-show hysteria here on PE, read this:

http://www.progressiveears.org/forum...ight=snow+live

[calyx]

I watched the entire show they did in Germany, of which a semi-pro-shot/recorded version was on YT shortly after. While it's not my favourite SB album I really liked the "family reunion" aspect of the performance, which was top-notch. I hope they filmed & plan to release the Morsefest performance.

[JKL2000]

I hope they filmed & plan to release the Morsefest performance.

As sure as the sun will rise again tomorrow, but it does sort of seem like it should have been released already.

[JKL2000]

Wait a minute, Aymeric, what's wrong with us? Preorders are underway! The Artbook bundle is only $65!

http://www.radiantrecords.com/produc...snow-live.aspx

[calyx]

Wait a minute, Aymeric, what's wrong with us? Preorders are underway! The Artbook bundle is only $65!

http://www.radiantrecords.com/produc...snow-live.aspx

Our prayers have been answered - pretty much immediately ! There clearly IS someone out there... ;-)

[JKL2000]

Our prayers have been answered - pretty much immediately ! There clearly IS someone out there... ;-)

And he has decreed that the first 200 Artbook bundles ordered shall be signed by the apostle Morse!

[ScottAM]

Hi ,

I was just curious if anyone here saw 1 of the 3 shows performed last year and if so what are your thoughts?

Thanks,
Pete

Hi, I was at the Morsefest show (there were only 2 shows of Snow: Morsefest and Loreley) which was over-the-top amazing. If you like the Snow album, you'll certainly love the Blueray/DVD they are releasing in November. The reunion of the 5 Spock's members was augmented with Ted Leonard and Jimmy Keegan also performing on stage throughout to fatten the sound and give it more character. The drum duel between Nick and Jimmy alone is worth the price of admission (which is featured in the encore song "Falling for Forever"). Neal also let Nick, Jimmy and Ted have cameo lead-vocal sections during the Snow songs which were *not* on the original studio recording, and those were some of the highlights of the night. The video screens behind the band and the lighting made it an extremely top notch performance...kind of hard to believe the setting is actually a church! All in all, it's a Spock's tour de force. Certainly one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Enjoy!

[aith01]

Okay, this is certainly tempting...

[marabus]

The family reunion aspect was what caught my attention. I haven't played Snow in years-suppose I should spin it again.

[marabus]

Thanks for your input!

[mozo-pg]

Wait a minute, Aymeric, what's wrong with us? Preorders are underway! The Artbook bundle is only $65!

http://www.radiantrecords.com/produc...snow-live.aspx

$66 is close to $90 or $95 Canadian. Not that cheap. Still, I appreciate you posting the link to th new reunion DVD. I bought the regular (I think they must be bluray) DVD's (two, again, I think). This ran me $40 Canadian with shipping.

I wasn't a huge fan of Snow when it was released but I'm hoping a live performance really shows the value to the album.

[miamiscot]

In a better world this reunion would have yielded a world tour with record-breaking revenue.

[Progatron]

I have the 2 CD/2 DVD edition pre-ordered from Amazon Canada for $22.67. Good enough for me!

[JKL2000]

$66 is close to $90 or $95 Canadian. Not that cheap. Still, I appreciate you posting the link to th new reunion DVD.

I was joking about the price - $65 is not cheap!

[mozo-pg]

I was joking about the price - $65 is not cheap!

I should have got that one!

I'm going to see if I can cancel my order from the band and go to Amazon for half price.

[dgtlman]

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_s...d=P0J6YQ063C9K

[rdclark]

My copy of the non-special edition Blu arrived from Radiant today.

First impressions:

Stereo LPCM only. Sounds fine, reasonably balanced, you can hear everything, but there's a slightly distant quality to the audio that makes it sound like, well, like it was recorded in a church. Audio-sync issues throughout.

Video has a very home-brew quality to it, lots of different-quality lenses, occasional conversion artifacts. But it's not over-edited, and generally the screen shows you what the music makes you want to be seeing at any given moment. (Not all expensive professional concert videos can say the same.)

The effects lighting may have been cool in the room, but it overwhelms the video at points. Meanwhile, the venue being small and not a theater, any shot that includes the room boundaries dispel the illusion of staged performance and evoke the feeling of a rock band playing in the college commons at lunchtime.

I saw maybe five women in the audience.

But... if you are a fan of this band and/or this music, the disc is a must-have. The performances transcend the limitations of the recording. Of course, there are mistakes and vocal roughness and lack of polish, but mostly it all works. Morse is Morse, of course, never far from the center of things, sounding mostly fine. Nick d'Virgilio spends a great deal of time on his feet, singing lead on a number of songs (as he did on the original recording) and being an effective front-man; even Ted Leonard gets a couple of turns, including where the three lead singers do a trio arrangement seated on stools center-stage.

I don't want to go into more detail without spending more time with it. I doubt this will make anyone like this work or this band who didn't already, but if you do you will like this disc. You might wish for more immediate-sounding audio or more channels; you might wish for better image quality. But you'll still be happy with it, and want to watch it more than once.

There's a making-of video included that I haven't watched yet.

[JKL2000]

I saw maybe five women in the audience.

I THINK there were a fair number of female NM/SB fans on the two Cruises to the Edge I was on, but I guess it's hard to know for sure. Some of them were Portnoy fans I guess.

[Rufus]

My copy of the non-special edition Blu arrived from Radiant today.

First impressions:

Stereo LPCM only. Sounds fine, reasonably balanced, you can hear everything, but there's a slightly distant quality to the audio that makes it sound like, well, like it was recorded in a church. Audio-sync issues throughout.

Video has a very home-brew quality to it, lots of different-quality lenses, occasional conversion artifacts. But it's not over-edited, and generally the screen shows you what the music makes you want to be seeing at any given moment. (Not all expensive professional concert videos can say the same.)

The effects lighting may have been cool in the room, but it overwhelms the video at points. Meanwhile, the venue being small and not a theater, any shot that includes the room boundaries dispel the illusion of staged performance and evoke the feeling of a rock band playing in the college commons at lunchtime.

I saw maybe five women in the audience.

But... if you are a fan of this band and/or this music, the disc is a must-have. The performances transcend the limitations of the recording. Of course, there are mistakes and vocal roughness and lack of polish, but mostly it all works. Morse is Morse, of course, never far from the center of things, sounding mostly fine. Nick d'Virgilio spends a great deal of time on his feet, singing lead on a number of songs (as he did on the original recording) and being an effective front-man; even Ted Leonard gets a couple of turns, including where the three lead singers do a trio arrangement seated on stools center-stage.

I don't want to go into more detail without spending more time with it. I doubt this will make anyone like this work or this band who didn't already, but if you do you will like this disc. You might wish for more immediate-sounding audio or more channels; you might wish for better image quality. But you'll still be happy with it, and want to watch it more than once.

There's a making-of video included that I haven't watched yet.

Thanks for the review , was hoping for a 5:1 mix so may just opt for the CD now!

[JKL2000]

Thanks for the review , was hoping for a 5:1 mix so may just opt for the CD now!

Do they do 5.1 mixes of concerts?

[rdclark]

Do they do 5.1 mixes of concerts?

Yes, it's almost universal with mainstream music and big-budget productions. Hit or miss with independent releases like this one. Usually it's a L-C-R mix of the stage, with house ambiance in the surrounds, or maybe a bit of instrumental wraparound.

This one sounds pretty decent, though. And at least it's lossless stereo; by contrast the Morse Band "Alive Again" BD is Dolby Digital 2.0, which is technically the lowest-fidelity audio format available for Blu-ray, lossy and bandwidth-limited.

I should also add that the second encore, "Falling For Forever" (the 20-minute reunion song Morse wrote for the band's compilation album), is here a 30+ minute vaudeville act in which the two drummers use every object they can reach, including each other, to demonstrate how very fortunate this band has been in its choices of percussionists, and perhaps why they couldn't find a third one of the same caliber. It's a hoot.

The documentary is not that great. It seems to intercut material from an (2002?) "Making of" documentary with a few contemporary interviews of band members, along with a Q&A with fans that was held prior to the show. Some useful nuggets, but not really much meat. It's about how everybody feels about the album and each other, and not much about the actual show, and no technical or staging info to peak of.

The concert, though, is IMO just plain wonderful. Even though Snow is not my favorite SB album I did like it a lot, as I liked all their albums a lot. And this video, while no technical tour-de-force, lets you experience the show more than well enough to feel the energy and joy that suffuse the performances, and to clearly hear everything that was played and sung.

There are some ugly interactions between the show lighting and the video cameras, though. It gets worse as the show goes on, and is by far the biggest flaw.

[BravadoNJ]

although i have the first 5 albums, i didn't get Snow yet.
i've been absorbing both Testimony and Similitude CD's for the past year.
i really want to hear the original CD set before i go for this live performance.
maybe early 2018.

[jarmsuh]

Do they do 5.1 mixes of concerts?

A lot of music concerts have 5.1 mixes, most of the times not discrete, only ambiance, but Spock's Beard has done a 5.1 mix for 2 DVD, neal morse has never done one, I guess he has his word on this latest snow live release and he doesn't care much about surround sound.

[marabus]

Hi Scott,
Thank you for all that great information.
Pee