Gigantour 2 (2006/Image Entertainment DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C- Extras: B- Feature: C+
If you
are looking to buy a concert DVD, any concert DVD, it is presumably because you
like the band or bands that are on the disc. So I’m not even going to bother giving my
review of the music, because if you don’t already like Megadeth, Lamb of God,
Opeth and the other bands that participated in this tour (I’ll name the rest of
them later) then you have no business even reading this review. Gigantour
was organized by Dave Mustaine from Megadeth and put together to highlight who
he considers to be the great metal guitar players out there today. The other bands on the tour were Arch Enemy,
Over Kill, Into Eternity, Sanctity, and The Smashup. The concert footage is a little over an hour
long and features anywhere from one to three songs from each band.
It is
obvious watching this DVD that making it was a priority during the actual tour. There were at least five cameras used to
shoot the concerts along with videographers following everyone all the time
backstage. The concert footage was well
executed, well shot, and the editing is almost as frenetic as the music. The picture, in 1.78:1 widescreen, has that
very distinct concert footage look where the quality isn’t quite up to
standards with what we’re used to seeing everywhere else, which is caused more
than anything else by the restrictions of shooting against the stage’s lighting
design. The sound is in your choice of
DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0 and I am constantly amazed at how concert
DVDs can mess up the audio when the music is more or less the entire point. Still, this time around it is not so bad as
most others, but the vocals and instruments do run together a bit.
There are
two extras on the disc, an extended backstage feature that stretches about a
half hour, and a bonus track where all the bands sing together on Megadeth’s
song Peace Sells. The backstage feature is definitely a huge
selling point for fans. It’s basically a backstage pass that lets you in on
everything from interviews with each of the bands to practical jokes and tales
from the underbelly of the tour crew.
Like I
said before, the only reason why you would buy this DVD is if you like the
bands. And if you like the bands, then
you want this. It’s as simple as that.
- Matthew Carrick
