Review of Megadeth: Rude Awakening

Introduction

Megadeth have been around for nearly 20 years, delivering their brand of heavy/thrash metal via numerous albums and having the most critical success earlier in career. In the last few weeks however, the group have disbanded after an accident that left their vocalist/guitarist Dave Mustaine`s arm so badly injured that it seems unlikely that he will play again. The rest of the band decided that they couldn`t continue without him, so the book closed on another successful heavy metal band

Megadeth`s Rude Awakening live DVD has therefore proved to be an unintended epitaph to the group, which will be eagerly awaited by fans in the knowledge that is it unlikely that other live performances will be released.

Video

The video comes in 4:3 full-frame, and is of above average quality, providing the viewer with what they would expect from a concert video - the band on stage and adoring fans waving their arms and sticking their tongues out etc.

The picture is reasonably crisp, but the detail is limited by the dark concert. The concert footage is free from grain and dirt, although the extra "underground concert" footage is very grainy black and white camcorder material.

Audio

The sound comes in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is only of average quality, with the reproduction hampered by a limited dynamic range. The bass is quite boomy and drowns out an inadequate mid-range and compressed hi-end, providing an ultimately unsatisfactory audio experience.

As far as the songs go, there are 24, and the sound quality makes many of them sound the same - boomy bass and overloud vocals and not much in-between. Consequently listening to all 24 in one sitting is something for only the bravest fan.

Features

Extras include a five song bonus "underground concert", which doesn`t impress visually but offers extra material for fans of the band. There is also B-roll footage, studio footage and finally interviews. This is all run-of-the-mill live concert DVD material of the "we`d better dig something else up to stick on the disc" type.

The menus are quite nice though, and easy to navigate.

Conclusion

Music DVDs are difficult to judge, because obviously everyone has their own personal taste in music, and big fans of groups are likely to buy CDs and DVDs regardless of what reviewers have to say about them.

So, on the basis that the value of the content on the disc is entirely down to personal preferences, the presentation becomes the best way to judge the DVD against others, and I must say that I wasn`t particularly impressed by this disc. The video is adequate, but the sound is very disappointing, and when compared to the last live music DVD that I watched which had stupendous sound quality (Roger Waters), this doesn`t cut the mustard I`m afraid. In the case of this disc, better presentation of the sound in particular might have made it more enjoyable, but as it stands, this DVD doesn`t show the group in particularly good light.

The extras don`t offer anything special, but are about the norm for live concert discs.

Overall, it`s unlikely that this disc will be going back in my player, which really says it all.