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Body Count - The Smoke Out Festival DVD Review

by Joannie Foney


Thanx to poor technical aspects, this DVD is now on my list of all time disappointing concert DVDs. This fact should not be held against Body Count, who crawled back out of obscurity to perform masterfully for this Smoke Out concert series after a lengthy hiatus.

Body Count performed fine in spite of the Sharon Osbourne- reminiscent interference of the sound crew, who kept cutting off their equipment when they felt the songs should end in order to keep Body Count's allotted time on stage on schedule. In all, for a band that has been off the radar & out of the public's imagination for at least ten years now, they played well & it was fun to see they still remember their old hits & how to play 'em.

Additional technical problems plaguing this DVD however, ruined the experience. Apparently an unskilled, inexperienced camera operator was in charge. Maybe he secured his job through nepotism or something. His desire to repeatedly pan across the audience in order to include crowd shots ended up being self defeating, as the crowd consisted mainly of apathetic, lackadaisical people just standing around watching the performance. The sound level from this crowd was almost nonexistent, due to sound problems, all these conspired to make this DVD unique for being "live" yet sounding like it came from a studio. Overall, it was the most un-live, un-concert feeling concert DVD I've ever seen & I hope this doesn't become the wave of the future in concert DVDs. The behind the scenes stuff was scant, skimpy & mind stultifyingly boring. The 3 1/2 minutes of the section, entitled "The Making of Smoke Out" that I managed to watch could have been super interesting if only I were a woman of more diverse tastes. Unfortunately, detailed technical information from "the little people" behind this multi band concert failed to make me clamor for more. Listening to crucially important employees like Erin Powell, the second director in charge of lighting, for instance, might be endlessly thrilling to some, but not to me. Maybe after the 4-minute mark this section gets more viscerally exciting, with talks from some of the more exotic & interesting stage hands, like the guy who brings the talent bottled water, but alas, I'll never know for certain.

If you liked Body Count back in the day, this DVD will charm you, maybe. If you like your concert DVDs to have a higher energy level & a more "live" feel, or if you are not really sure why an actor is singing in a metal band, maybe this is one you'll want to skip.


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Body Count - The Smoke Out Festival DVD

Label:RED Distribution
Rating:

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