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A Little Bit About Me and My Site Welcome to my concert DVD (and the occasional live concert) review site. My name is Paul Roy and I am currently the sole contributor and caretaker of concertdvdreviews.com. I first published this site in the summer of 2004, under the name Roy's Reviews, after completing about 50 initial reviews. So far, all of the reviews on this site have been written by me, but I am certainly open to having guest reviewers, if anyone is interested. In March of 2006, I purchased my own domain name and decided to call it concertdvdreviews.com. The name certainly leaves no confusion as to what the site is all about. I decided to throw this site together for several reasons, the main being that I love live concerts, and also because I love to give my opinions of them. There was also a lack of good concert DVD review sites out there. Sure, there are plenty of good DVD review sites, but they are all primarily movie review sites, which might churn out the occasional concert DVD review. Also, many of the reviewers on these sites do not appear all that familiar with the band they are reviewing, or with music in general. I consider myself to be fairly versed in rock and roll music, as I have been a music fanatic since my older brother first introduced me to The Beatles when I was still sucking my thumb. I can still clearly remember falling asleep to Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper when I was only about five years old. It's amazing to think that those landmark albums had just been released a few years prior. I was born in 1965, so I grew up on all of the great 60's and 70's rock and roll. This helps to explain why I still refer to CD's as albums in my reviews. Besides, it saves from having to distinguish between CD's, cassettes, 8-tracks, and albums. OK, now I'm really confusing some of you younger kids. Was there ever a better five year period of music than between 1967 and 1971? This is when all of the greatest bands in history released most of the greatest albums in history. Sgt. Pepper, Are You Experienced?, The Yes Album, Abraxas, Wheels Of Fire, The Doors, Led Zeppelin II, Let It Bleed, Aqualung, Who's Next...need I go on?. This five year period easily surpasses everything that came before and everything that has come after. Unfortunately, it is looking more and more like it will surpass everything that is yet to come as well. Fortunately there have been some great bands to come along during the 80's and 90's such as U2, Metallica, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, and King's X, to name a few. Many of the legendary bands such as Yes, Rush, Deep Purple, Santana, and The Rolling Stones are also still touring and putting out some great concert DVD's. Almost all bands are recording concert DVDs now, or they are re-releasing older concert videos in DVD format - so the medium is expanding phenomenally. The price of a decent DVD player and home theater system keeps dropping as well, so it is now possible for the average Joe to rock out to their favorite bands in concert via an incredible sounding DTS 5.1 surround sound mix, and a giant, widescreen, hi-definition screen. That surely beats watching Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, or The Midnight Special, on a 13-inch, black & white! Anyways, I knew I could not compete with all of the great album review sites out there, so I stuck to something that is still fairly new, and is not yet oversaturated. Concert DVD reviews are a little more challenging than album reviews, I think, because where the album reviewer usually only considers the music and songwriting content, rarely do I see production/engineering influence an album rating, I have to take into account, not only the quality of the music, but the quality of the performance, stage show, video recording, audio recording, camera work, etc. As you can see, these DVD reviews could easily get out of hand, which is why I lump everything into two main rating categories; overall performance, and overall production quality. I have attended hundreds of mind-blowing concerts including everything from major stadium spectacles, such as Guns & Roses, Metallica, and Faith No More together at the enormous New Orleans Superdome, to more intimate shows, such as Larry Carlton at the 100-seater, jazz/blues club, Blues Alley, in Washington, DC. My love of concerts began in 1981, when a sophomore in high school, my older brother took me to my first concert - Santana, in Portland, Maine. From that day on, I was going to every concert I could possibly afford, including Blue Oyster Cult, the Scorpions, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Rush, Bon Jovi, Heart, Kansas, Yes, Chicago, The Grateful Dead, Kiss, Styx, Dream Theater, Queensryche, ZZ-Top, The Cult...and I could go on forever. My favorite styles of music are classic rock, progressive-rock, metal, blues, and jazz fusion. About the only styles of music that I simply cannot tolerate are rap, hip-hop, most country, and opera. I doubt you will ever find reviews of these genres on this site. music itself, rather than the lyrics. I can easily enjoy great music that is accompanied by weak lyrics, but rarely the other way around. This would explain why I can still enjoy an old fashioned 80's hair-metal anthem about not needing "nothin' but a good time", but I never could stand most of Bob Dylan's stuff. Ouch, I can hear it now. Hope you enjoy the site. |