Subtitles: English for the hearing-impaired, French, German and Spanish
Widescreen: 1.78:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £19.99
Extras:
23 minutes of interviews plus a DVD-exclusive, 9 minute interview with Foo
Fighters
Director:
Janet Fraser Crook
Producer:
Alison Howe
Series Producer:
Mark Cooper
Bands:
Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Screaming Trees, The Hives, Metallica,
Ash, Hole, Sonic Youth, At The Drive-In, The Datsuns, Stereophonics,
The Von Bondies, PJ Harvey, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Black Rebel Motorcycle
Club, The Cardigans, The Rollins Band, Mercury Rev, The White Stripes, Alice
in Chains, Garbage, The Afghan Whigs, Dick Dale, The Vines, Porno for Pyros,
New Order, The Soundtrack of Our Lives, Mazzy Star, The Black Crowes and
Primal Scream
He may have been the keys player in Squeeze but Jools Holland,
has really forged himself into the nation's consciousness through his
successful fronting of two of the most credible music programmes on TV, namely
The Tube in the '80s and Later... for the last ten years.
Later... Louder does exactly what it says on the tin by focusing
on thirty of the show's more rock-oriented live performances. Although there
may have been the danger that "loud" would end up meaning "one-dimensional",
this has been avoided by the producers' taking liberties with the definition of
"loud". Thus, it spans the range from sultry, Swedish indie-pop (The Cardigans)
to full-on, visceral heavy metal (Metallica, The Rollins Band).
Like the show itself, throughout this DVD, the emphasis is firmly on the music.
There is little in the way of spoken intros, just one song flowing almost
seamlessly into the next. The non-chronological track order is a bit of a
mystery too, although there are flashes of cleverness in their arrangement.
For example, the first three tracks are Foo Fighters doing All My Life,
Queens of the Stone Age performing No-one Knows and Screaming Trees
playing All I Know. The link? Well, Dave Grohl fronts Foo Fighters, he
drummed on the recorded version of No-one Knows, while Screaming Trees singer,
Mark Lanegan guested on the same Queens of the Stone Age album.
If this sounds
a bit too much like a name-game quiz for music know-alls, then that is probably
the idea. After all, judging by this DVD, Later's studio crowd has changed
little since 1993, and seems to consist of twenty- and thirty-somethings who
are far too "cool" to do anything other than nod their head sagely in time with
the music. While this may be okay when Mercury Rev are delicately playing
Goddess on a Hiway, it looks rather absurd when At The Drive-In
are delivering the limbs-akimbo, personification of anarchy that is
One Armed Scissor (definitely one of the highlights).
Given the fact that Later... is a show for real music fans and
Later... Louder even more so, it is surprising that the DVD does not
come with even Dolby Digital 5.1. Bizarrely, this does not actually detract
too much from the level of entertainment on offer, perhaps because it seems to
accentuate the rawness of some of the performances.
Extras-wise, you can program your six favourite tracks, while there are
interviews with The Hives, Courtney Love, PJ Harvey, New Order, Metallica,
Garbage and Henry Rollins. There is also a DVD-exclusive interview
with the Foo Fighters, during which Dave Grohl claims that Later...
"is the only show like this in the entire world."
This may or may not be true, but after watching this DVD one thing is for sure:
with its emphasis on the ability of bands to actually play their instruments,
Later... is one of dying and increasingly crucial breed. Long may it
continue.
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
