Scorpions - Moment Of Glory with the Berliner
Philhamoniker (2001/Eagle DVD)
Picture:
C- Sound: B- Extras:
C- Concert: C
The most
unfortunate trend in music on DVD has artists taking their music and changing
it, as if there was something wrong with it to begin with. Electric Light
Orchestra’s Zoom is one great
failure. New Wave acts like Billy Idol or even the New Wave-like Hall
& Oates trying to turn their music into acoustic pieces has been
disastrous. Then there are those trying to add orchestral music to their
hits. Three Dog Night had some success doing this in separate CD and DVD
releases with two different orchestras. However, Germany’s The Scorpions bring the
worst of all these worlds together for Moment
Of Glory.
In the
1980s, the band scored 5 million-selling albums, surviving the hair-band cycle
that helped kill rock music until Grunge kicked in briefly. They were the
equal to all their American Hard Rock counterparts, having more hits into the
early 1990s, as they faded away for a while in the states. Sadly, this
project is one of the most misguided in recent rock history. The band has
run out of steam, while some of their songs were always silly to begin
with. Their Rock musicianship is above selling out their best hits to
sappy, silly, erroneous orchestral mixings. It also says that their music
was not important enough somehow, one of the biggest mistakes anyone in Rock
can make. This disaster has also happened with bad Jazz mixing.
Ten of
their songs get victimized, especially “Big
City Nights,” which epitomizes what went wrong here. “Moment Of Glory” is repeated
twice! The power ballad, and not such a good one, like any other power
ballad is not any more easily mixed with classical arrangements than “Rock You Like A Hurricane” could have
been. Add interviews with no point and “director’s cuts” (Noooooooo!) of
“Hurricane 2000,” “Moment Of Glory” (a third time? That kills the ‘moment’ all right), and “Here in My Heart,” and you’ll be
reaching for that German dictionary to find the word for overkill.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1/16 x 9 widescreen TV image has some of the
same mastering problems as the superior Etta James - Burnin’ Down The House DVD, but not as often. This is still
pretty bad picture wise, but not as annoying as the music content. The
sound is available in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, Dolby Digital AC-3 5.1 and DTS 5.1
mixes, which are not bad. The fidelity is the highlight of the DVD, even
if the content is not.
Even
guest singers hurt this program. Hardcore Scorpion fans should beware
that this is NOT what they would have hoped for. The band has gone soft,
and all 100 minutes prove this, down to the documentary shows a once
respectable band throwing in the towel. Obviously, they were trying to
emulate Metallica’s more successful “S&M”
project of the same type, but you can just skip this one!
Since we
first posted this review, we have not only covered several Berliner
Philharmoniker Blu-ray and DVD Classical releases, but two Michael Schenker
Group titles, which you can read more about at this link:
Live In Tokyo 30th Anniversary Blu-ray +
DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10461/The+Michael+Schenker+Group+%E2
World Wide Live 2004 DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1683/Michael+Schenker+Group+-+World+Wi
- Nicholas
Sheffo
