Glenn Hughes - Live In Australia
Performance
Production
|
Glenn Hughes - Live In Australia
Performance
|
|
They call him the "Voice of Rock". Real fans will know him from his 70's work with the English hard rock band Trapeze. Casual fans may know of him through his brief stints in the legendary metal bands Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. But the devoted Glenn Hughes fans will have stuck around long enough to savor his latest solo effort, 2006's Music For The Divine. Although not quite as strong as 2005's Soul Mover, this is still some of the best work of his career. Say what you will about Glenn Hughes, but he is certainly one of the more remarkable "voices of rock". I was rather late in discovering the music of Glenn Hughes. Yeah, I knew he contributed some of the lead vocals on the Burn through Come Taste The Band era of Deep Purple, but that was really David Coverdale's gig. My older brother became a fan of Hughes' solo work during the early 90's, and I got my first proper introduction to Hughes when he handed me his Burning Japan Live album of 1995. But it wasn't until after I had immersed myself into Soul Mover, as well as the two exceptional, soul-fueled, metal albums he did with Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi (The 1996 Dep Sessions and Fused), that I was seriously made a fan. On June 17th, 2006, Hughes played his first solo gig in Australia at Sydney's famous music venue, The Basement. This mostly acoustic performance had a very VH1 Storytellers kind of vibe to it, since Hughes introduced each song with a short comment or story. Joining Hughes onstage were his long-time guitarist JJ Marsh on acoustic guitar, Lachlan Doley on keyboards, and the same four-piece string section that was featured prominently on the Music For The Divine album. Hughes played acoustic guitar and then switched to electric bass towards the end of the set. I had no idea what to expect from this DVD, as I had not yet heard Music For The Divine, and had never seen Hughes perform in such an intimate acoustic setting. Well, it looks like the man can do it all, because this was one of the more soulful and moving performances I have seen in a while. Hughes vocals were left raw and unprocessed in the mix, but he still sounded incredible. His voice has aged remarkably well over the years, maintaining the same power and range, but sounding even more finely tuned. Hughes favors his bluesy lower register a little more these days over the trademark falsetto wails of his earlier years, but he can still deliver the goods when necessary. The performance kicks off with "Coast to Coast", a song that goes all the way back to the1972 Trapeze album You Are the Music, We're Just the Band. Hughes then moves up the timeline a few years to his debut solo album, 1977's Play Me Out, for a gorgeous update of the soulful ballad "I Found A Woman". This was the first time Hughes had ever performed the song live, and it should not be the last. From there, Hughes focuses mostly on songs from his two most recent solo albums, but he also revisits his Deep Purple roots, featuring three songs from their Come Taste The Band album. Hughes also performs a version of the Moody Blues' classic "Nights In White Satin", which he recorded for the Australian release of Music For The Divine. Musically speaking, it is a pretty straightforward run through of the song, but Hughes sings it with enough passion and conviction to really make it his own. Towards the later third of the show, Hughes swaps out his acoustic guitar for an electric bass before diving into a short cover of The Band's "A White Shade Of Pale". Again, Hughes makes this one his own with the infusion of several falsetto vocal flourishes. Deep Purple's Burn masterpiece "Mistreated" has long been a staple of Hughes' live shows, but it doesn't exactly lend itself well to an acoustic makeover. For this performance, Marsh drenched his acoustic guitar in delay and echo to create a completely unique mood, and Hughes cranked up his bass an extra notch to help project the power of the original. Hughes vocal gymnastics can be a little too Christina Aguilera-like over-the-top at times, be he managed to reign himself in enough to keep this one from getting too out of hand. The middle part of the set featured four tracks in a row from Music For The Divine, and is what inspired me to rush out and buy the album. These are the four lightest tracks on the new album, so don't think that the whole thing is just a bunch of ballads. I can assure you that the rest of the album rocks and funks pretty hard. "Frail" and "The Divine" are easily two of the best ballads Hughes has ever written, and are each beautiful enough to bring a grown man to the verge of tears. Ahem, ah, not me though, of course. Hughes brings the set to a close by inviting Australia's own Jimmy Barnes up on stage to help sing the Deep Purple classic "Gettin' Tighter". Barnes who had been nursing drinks out in the audience during the whole performance, greets the crowd with "How are you supposed to fucking sing after that?! Thanks a lot man!" But Barnes, who possesses a powerfully gruff and bluesy voice, belts out the song like it was written especially for him. Barnes had been hanging out with Hughes because he sang on the radio-edit of "Monkey Man", which appears on the Australian release of Music For The Divine. The encore features an emotionally charged rendition of the Deep Purple gem "You Keep On Moving", which Hughes sings so passionately that he practically weeps some of the lyrics. His emotion always seems very genuine, and not just contrived for the audience's sake. The production quality of this DVD was surprisingly superior. For some reason I was expecting something a little more low budget, but this disc was aces in all categories. Three audio options are provided in the form of DTS 5.1 surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. They all sounded remarkable, but I would give the edge to the DTS track, as it is so crisp, clear, and natural sounding that you might swear that the band is set up right in your living room. The track was engineered very LOUD too, so I had to turn my amplifier volume down several notches from where I usually keep it. Hughes' last two solo albums have feature the drumming of Red Hot Chili Peppers' drummer Chad Smith exclusively. The two have become great friends and have done several live performances together. The special features disk includes four extraordinary live performances, "Nights In White Satin", "Gettin' Tighter", "Mistreated", and "Don't Let Me Bleed", from a Glenn Hughes concert that took place on July 20th, 2006, in Rome, Italy, and featured Smith on the drums. The intensity and chemistry between these two guys was amazing. The special features disk also included an hour long "Making of Music for the Divine" and "Steppin' On - The 2006 Tour Diaries" documentary that featured Hughes and Smith on the road during their 2006 tour, and in the recording studio discussing each track off the new album. Live studio recordings of "Coast To Coast" and "Gettin' Tighter", as well as music videos for "Monkey Man", "This House", and "The Divine" are also included. After witnessing Hughes performances with Chad Smith at the Rome show, it will be a crime if they don't put out a quality recording of a full show from that tour. In the mean time, make sure you pick up Live In Australia to witness a little soul-funk-rock at its finest. Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - January 2008 |
|
Technical Details |
|
|
Audio Transfer |
Video Transfer |
|
Set List |
Performers |
|
Running Time: 85 Minutes |
DVD Release Date - September 2007 |