Dom Robinson reviews
The Cranberries: Beneath the Skin
Distributed by
The Cranberries: Beneath the Skin: Live in Paris
Fronted by Dolores O'Riordan , the lady with the ever-changing hair
over the years and with an incredibly distinctive voice, this Irish band
came to the fore in the UK in February 1994 with Linger , a track that,
while not being their biggest hit to date is certainly one of their most
played and certainly the most radio-friendly for all those middle-of-the-road
stations that latch onto one single track from a band/artist and ignore all
others.
They have since gone on to produce a number of other - and better - hits
such as Ode to my Family, Promises and probably my favourite of all,
Zombie , which was written in the hope of peace being found in Northern
Ireland, but there's about as much chance of that happening as there is of
the country's now-ex Secretary, Peter Mandelson , ever uttering a word
of truth again.
The concert on this disc is a basic on-stage affair with occasional video
wall footage, but the whole band appear to be enjoying themselves.
Their singles chart history to the end of 2000 is as follows :
Feb 94 No.14 Linger
May 94 No.27 Dreams
Sep 94 No.14 Zombie
Nov 94 No.26 Ode to my Family
Mar 95 No.23 I Can't Be With You
Aug 95 No.20 Ridiculous Thoughts
Apr 96 No.13 Salvation
Jul 96 No.33 Free to Decide
Apr 99 No.13 Promises
Jul 99 No.54 Animal Instinct
The picture quality is questionable. Some scenes appear better than others,
but - and it may be just down to the filming process used in part - a number
of scenes suffer as a result as the encoding can't cope and throws up artifacts.
An increasing number of concerts are being filmed and presented in anamorphic
16:9 and this is one of them. The average bitrate is an almost-static
5.89Mb/s.
The sound, however, is first-rate. The Dolby Digital 5.1 places every song
loud and proud, providing an aural treat. Whichever your favourite tracks
are, you can rely on them sounding at their best.
Extras. : New band documentary in two
parts, lasting 18 minutes in total, containing chat from each member and an
Exclusive Technicians Documentary (13½ mins) where the crew
members have their say. All of these are in anamorphic 16:9.
Promo videos are included for Promises, Animal Instinct and
Just My Imagination . The first two of these were shot in a matted
widescreen ratio but neither are anamorphically-presented. Live performances
of Not Hollywood - from 1996 - and Saving Grace - from 1999 - are
here too, as is a rare live airing for How from 1993, plus 1995's
Yesterday's Gone from MTV Unplugged.
There's a Stills Gallery with 73 images showing the band on stage,
the crew, plus backstage shots of the band sat about their dressing room,
a section of Dolby Digital test signals to check all your
speakers are connected and aligned properly and a Morphing Album Cover
that lasts about 30 seconds for Bury the Hatchet , their 1999 release.
I understand Song Lyrics are included too but there's something wrong
with the whole menu system, designed by Storm Thorgerson, that don't allow
you to manoeuvre correctly on a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player, so I had to
access each of the extras blindly via the onscreen remote control.
On the subject of lyrics, that's exactly what's lacking from the subtitles.
Also, out of the 10 languages, none of them are English, just: French, German,
Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Dutch and Finnish.
All you get from these, though, are the spoken introductions from Dolores,
when you really need the lyrics to actually be seen as you're watching the
performance. Whose clueless idea was it to make that NOT happen? I've seen
the same thing happen on other music releases and it beggars belief.
There are 23 chapters. 22 for the music and one for the end credits.
The track listing is as follows :
1. Promises
13. I Can't Be With You
Overall, despite the menu problems and lack of English lyrics onscreen,
the concert itself and the extras, once you've found them, justifies the
purchase, particularly if you're a Cranberries fan :)
FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.
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DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
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