is on Sky Arts tomorrow at 6pm if you fancy cracking the seal on a new video tape.
Haven’t seen the Spike Lee film, but the live show was something special so I have this down as a must-see.
And Sky Arts is on freeview, so you’ve really only got the Strictly final as an excuse to miss this.
American Utopia
Woah! I shall have to consult an old mate of mine….
Utterly, utterly magnificent.
I bought the BD disc and it is, as Lodey says, utterly magnificent. As good as Stop making Sense.
Actually, thanks for the reminder, need to pick up about a dozen video tapes as usual to record all the movies that are shown over the Christmas/New Year period …
I’ll be away for a few days, so will have to set aside a few hours to program the VHS before we leave.
I wish someone would hurry up and invent Video Plus….
Dai can’t watch a movie unless it’s on VHS…
You need that analog warmth
You need a VCR with valves in, Dai…
You can’t beat that picture quality, all downhill since valves were replaced by transistors
I know a senior BBC technician (now retired – he taught me HDTV 25+ years ago) who swears the 1963 Marconi (four-valve) Plumbicon camera was the pinnacle of picture quality.
The Plumbicon used one valve for Y (luminance aka black & white) and three valves for Red, Green and Blue (matrixed to give U & V colour difference signals). By using a separate luminance sensor, the pictures were sharper than combining the RGB signals to generate Y.
TV signals (and video, DVD, BD, etc) still all use YUV coding.
I am very dull.
Pete Plumbicon is a highly-paid “performer” in the LA “industry”. Lives entirely on celery. I’ll leave it at that.
When I lived in Switzerland I had a (stereo) video recorder that could find the times for the recordings from the teletext pages that had the TV guide. You could click on the program wanted pretty much like you do today. Pretty advanced for 1990 or so!
A godsend of an invention for my late mother, whose capacity with any technology of the time was akin to my ability to understand coding.
No matter what film I recorded, I always ended up with ten minutes of the fkin James Whale show. It was the only time I saw the bastard.
If I ever see him in the street I’ll tell him… “You owe me the first ten minutes of the Long Good Friday, you arsehole!”
Be discrete, Moose…
I bought my aged mum a PVR a few years ago and she thinks it is the greatest invention of all time.
My last trip abroad before the Inconvenience was to New York. American Utopia was on but I was there for work, didn’t have much time, and just couldn’t fit it in. So naturally, notwithstanding Ian’s generous public service message, I forgot this was on, just managing to catch the last 10 minutes. Hope it’s on again….
I’m watching it just now. By god, this is good. I’m four songs in.
I’ve just finished watching it, and impressive thought the concept is it’s all a bit stagey, isn’t it? The monologues are painfully rehearsed with no attempt at spontaneity (until the backstage scenes at the very end). I can see how it would work in a theatre, as filmed, but remain surprised that the tour played stadiums in the UK; not just that it could sell that many seats but that the fairly limited spectacle could project to a huge venue.
I witnessed the gig at the MEN Arena, Manchester. It was superb. The lighting effects projected across the arena brilliantly and you could see the whole of the choreography much better. It was like watching a football match and being wowed by the flow of the team’s movement, something you cannot see on TV.
You are right about the inter-song patter. I think that was designed for the movie. He did a lot less live.
I quite liked the staginess. It almost seemed like he wanted to be as in-rock and roll, as unspontaneous as possible, so it became more like an art statement. Very David Byrne, in other words.
Cynical me is also watching those dancing musicians thinking, there is no way they are playing live. It’s all just too precise. Not that I really mind if the instruments are all just for show. Maybe some of the percussion is live, but along to a backing track?
Byrne himself is impressive. Voice still as strong as ever, and decent at choreographed dance. What is he, early sixties now?
Pushing 70 rather.
Edit: he’s 69 now. He’s always looked in good nick though, must be all the cycling.
Ha! I’ve just reached the bit where he explains it’s all played live!
Utterly brilliant. I had a huge smile on my face throughout and I can’t say that often these days
Had the chance to see AU in Dublin. Didn’t go (well, it was DB from miles back in the 15K 3-Arena or Ry C from the front row of the 2K National Stadium).
Looking forward to the film though
Saw the show (well the previous tour) twice in Toronto and Ottawa. Was completely magnificent but I may have nevertheless preferred the “Songs of Byrne and Eno” tour in 2008. One of the best shows I have seen
Bought a ticket at the last minute. Went by myself.
One of the best spontaneous concert calls evah!
I really wish I had went now.