Dom Robinson reviews
James Taylor
Live at the Beacon Theatre
Distributed by
Sony Music
Cat.no: 501719
Cert: E
Running time: 109 minutes
Recorded May 30th, 1998
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 12 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Stereo
Languages: English
Subtitles: English, French
Presented in Fullscreen
16:9-enhanced: No
Macrovision: No
Disc Format: DVD 5
Price: £19.99
Extras : Scene index, Biographies for James and the band, Two music videos,
Discography, Interview
James Taylor: Live at the Beacon Theatre
is the full-length concert recorded on May 30th, 1998 at New York's Beacon
Theatre. It was the first-ever concert to be broadcast live nationwide on the
PBS Network in the US, but this DVD contains 25 tracks, including four which
were not broadcast on TV.
James Taylor has done the musical rounds for over thirty years and this
performance contains classics such as Your Smiling Face, You've Got A
Friend and Fire And Rain , covers of How Sweet It
Is, Up on the Roof and Not Fade Away , as well as songs
from his Grammy-award-winning album, Hourglass and the track
Ananas does not appear on the VHS release.
Surprisingly, despite his popularity, the Guinness Book of Hit Singles only
counts three of his songs as Top 75 chart hits :
Nov 70 No.42 Fire and Rain
Aug 71 No. 4 You've Got a Friend
Mar 74 No.34 Mockingbird ( duet with Carly Simon )
The picture has no artifacts but loses a point for obviously being an NTSC
recording and, as you'd expect, it won't yield a perfect quality in PAL.
The concert is presented in fullscreen and has an excellent average bitrate
of 8.25Mb/s, often peaking around 9Mb/s.
The sound comes in Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 and is crystal clear.
Extras. :
Chapters :
There are 27 chapters on the disc: 25 songs with credits to buffer them at
either side. The songs on the disc are as follows :
1. You Can Close Your Eyes
2. Another Day
3. Daddy's All Gone
4. Everyday
5. Mighty Storm
6. Only a Dream in Rio
7. Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight
8. Your Smiling Face
9. Jump Up Behind Me
10. Shower the People
11. How Sweet It Is
12. Fire and Rain
13. Me and My Guitar
14. (I've Got To) Stop Thinkin' 'Bout That
15. Handy Man
16. You've Got a Friend
17. Mexico
18. Little More Time With You
19. Line 'em Up
20. Up on the Roof
21. Ananas
22. Steamroller Blues
23. Belfast To Boston
24. Wandering
25. Not Fade Away
The bizarre thing is that all of these appear on the disc twice - once topped
and tailed by logos and credits and the other on their own for the scene
selection menu, which is pointless as the chapters were already on the
disc for the main programme. Sony haven't done that before so I can't think
what prompted them to do it this time.
Languages & Subtitles :
As stated before, the sound is in Stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1 and lyrics are
available in English and French.
And there's more... :
Biographies are available, with five pages for the main man plus a page
each for the band members, the Discography lists all the songs on each
of Mr. Taylor's many albums, there's a brief interview with the man lasting
just over eight minutes as well as two promo music videos: Copperline
and Enough To Be On Your Way .
Menu :
The menus are static and silent, each one containing a different picture which
is usually of James Taylor.
Overall, James Taylor puts on an engaging concert and any fan will find it
well worth a watch. It might not have a barrel-load of extras, but those that
are here are well-chosen ones.
FILM : ****
PICTURE QUALITY : ****
SOUND QUALITY : *****
EXTRAS : **
-------------------------------
OVERALL : ***½
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.
Check out the
Sony Music DVD Web site.
[Up to the top of this page]
Amazon.co.uk Widgets
DVDfever .co.uk - Est. February 25th 2000
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
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
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP