Hi, hope you have enjoyed yourself. This past weekend jazz was everywhere over here as it was time for the yearly North Sea Jazz festival. Although I didn’t go to the big performances (Robin Thicke, Pharell and other (more jazz related) artists), I did catch part of them on TV and saw some live performances walking through town. This made me think about something you don’t see reviewed a lot: Documentaries which consisting of a concert. I started to wonder about why that might be the case. Could it be because the people who will watch them in general will see them for the artist(s) and their music, not how it all was shot and therefore will probably love it. Then I started thinking about concert recordings which stand out because they are more than just music and usually it are the ones which have behind the scenes footage. One of my favourites is Dave Chapelle’s Block Party, where it wasn’t just about the music but about the people too, not even the famous ones. So my question:
Do you review concert registrations and if not what would you think be the difficulty in doing so?
I have done concert reviews though many of them haven’t been published in my music blog which I don’t write very often as I just stopped writing about music just because of lack of interest. The last concert I went to was Nine Inch Nails last October which you can read here: http://thevoidgoround.blogspot.com/2013/10/nine-inch-nailsgodspeed-you-black.html
But was it mostly concerts you wanted to see or did you also see, for example, the One Direction concert film? 😉
I haven’t seen that film but the concert films I do recommend are Stop Making Sense, Urgh! A Music War, Monterey Pop, and Gimme Shelter. It’s often things I want to see that has good music or something that is historical.
Thanks 🙂
I did a marathon of concert documentaries a year ago and can provide a link if you’re curious. I reviewed Monterey Pop, The White Stripes Under Great Northern Lights, Wattstax, and a few others. I had a great time with it, but I’m also a fan of a lot of the artists that I covered.
That’s my point…if you review them, they are usually of bands you have an interest in….so in the end these are all about the music and the format/way is filmed isn’t as important.
I’ve reviewed some music docs, but none that revolved around a specific concert. My thinking is that concert docs really only interest fans of that artist. What makes good music is far more subjective than what makes a good movie and most aren’t watching a concert flick for story telling or filmmaking acumen. Therefore, I really have little to say about them.
Yeah, I agree with you on that Wendell!
I reviewed Through The Never, but it’s not a full concert registration. It’s a movie with a concert of Metallica in it. 🙂 It was very hard to do because i’m not a expert on somebody’s singing voice or the instrument handling. Of course you can write about the technique, the lighting, the set-up. I’m not planning to write more concert reviews in the near future though. 🙂
That is one I’m still interested in watching even though I am not really a Metallica fan…