Oh My God, at the pure humanity in Rio....I couldn't have taken being around that many millions of people in the same place, it would have given me an anxiety attack. Some of the crowd shots were kind of dizzying when they took in the scope of the whole beachfront and showed a sea of arms waving in unisom.

Some great individual shots of hot babes on the beach....my kind of filming.

#......Go ahead....Bite the Big Apple....Don't mind the Maggots.....Uh Huh...#

The Piss Break came early...."Rain Fall Down" sent me running for relief.

jack knife wrote

>I hope it will be released on DVD..."Midnight Rambler" seemed like it would have been great. Ronnie was awesome all the way through from what I could hear...particularly on "Brown Sugar."



Mick was awesome on Rambler. As for Ronnie ,you must have went to the snack bar and missed Rough Justice. Boy, ronnie was rough on the ears on that one. it was like random sounds he was playing. Horrible. And Start me Up, he was non-existant during the first half of it. Keith gave a solid performance and Charlie is Charlie.

Gee...I thought Ronnie was GREAT on "Rough Justice."

Different licks for different kicks!

So I've just returned from an interesting evening with friends (and then the obligatory studio recording session where rap artists pay me to record their shitty music)...

The concert was great and the three friends I took with me got a real kick out of it. One of the guys was a n00b so he ofcourse loved it. The other three of us have all seen the Stones and know just how awesome the experience is. Not to mention the fact that we're all audiophiles. I had recorded the concert off XM radio the night it was broadcasted and we listened to the whole thing loving it from start to finish. The quality over XM was pretty excellent and so I had high hopes for this theatre debut. ALSO, I had downloaded the DVD rip of the show recorded from TV in Brazil, also high quality. So I already knew what was coming. What I didnt know is just how lousy the production was on it.

Here's my two complaints...

Complaint #1 - THE PICTURE: When I go to see a movie in the theatre I expect it to be true theatre formatting, IE: 16:9 aspect ratio. We didnt get this. Instead they just took the TV feed and used a panoramic effect to make it slightly wider instead of looking like TV ratio in the theatre. This reduced the quality of the image and made everyone look fatter. Visually thats my only complaint although the intro to the concert was pretty horrible. Having an intro with crowd noise is cool but it sounds and looks so cheap to fade it out then fade back in.

Complaint #2 - THE AUDIO: Oh man, where to begin... I need two points for this one... When the audio from XM radio sounds better than the theatre sound you know you're in trouble.

A. For starters everytime I go to the theatre I expect not only stellar sound but 5.1 SURROUND sound. I have yet to see a movie without 5.1 in the theatre. The sound at our theatre (and every other theatre) used ONLY the front speakers. There was nothing coming out of the sides or the rear. Big disapointment.

B. The mix was pretty horrible. Sure we all enjoyed the show but man was it unpleasant to hear it in such poor quality. This demonstrated the exact reason why I REFUSE TO USE PROTOOLS. The only thing coming through clearly and at a good volume was Mick's vocals. This is because they put a priority compressor on it, meaning everytime Mick sings everything else drops in the mix. Having drums, guitars and bass constatly go up and down in the mix because of vocal compression is horrible. I seriously cant believe someone got paid big bucks to mix that. I wouldve done it for free and I guarantee you it wouldve blown everyone away.


After hearing the first 30 seconds of JJFlash I decided to go find a manager and get them to fix the shitty sound. They immediately get on the walkietalkies and get the highschool projection kid to attempt to somehow improve the sound. Unfortunately for them theatres are setup in a pretty standard way. There is no EQ bar for them to mess with and in order to change the sound they prettymuch have to stop the movie, change the sound setup, and then start it all over again. So instead of doing that they decided to turn up the volume and that helped out a little. The problem is when you have a shitty mix turning it up just gives you loud shit.

Anyways, here's the kicker... After Midnight Rambler I went outside to talk to the owner of the theatre in a straight forward manner. (Mind you as frustrated as I was to pay $53 for me and three friends to go and see this show in horrible sound I am still a very composed young man with good communication skills.) He appologized for the sound but expained that there simply wasnt anything they could do and that they had already turned up the volume. The sound we were hearing was exactly as it was intended by the manufacturer...

Then he told me that he had just been on a conference call with the distributor and the owners of the theatre franchises across the US, and that every owner had the same complaint about the sound. Apparently I'm not the only audiophile out there.

Thankfully volume wasnt an issue at our theatre. It wouldve pissed me off if the sound had just been incredibly low from the beginning, but it was just the mixing. Overall we had fun but I think we wouldve had a better time watching the DVD rip with my XM radio mix overlayed on my friend's HD widescreen TV with 5.1 surround sound (and I'd make sure sound was coming out of all the speakers, even if not in true 5.1).

So thats my rant. We did actually have fun but I will be calling "bigscreenconcerts" and demanding my $53 back. If they refuse to give me a refund I will simply buy $50 worth of stamps and write them a letter every day demanding $103 to compensate my efforts in seeking a worthy refund.

Drake

(Reply to earlier question)

Yes, they did show the whole concert!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-03-01 09:15 by angee.

Was Ron Wood drunk in Rio?

Probably but he did a great job regardless

True, Ronnie was on fire in Rio. Too bad Mick and Keith gave him the cold shoulder.

I went to Dublin, CA the stones were great but like most people THE SOUND SUCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They didn't use any of the speakers along the walls. Also the old yuppie fans sucked. But im 21 so maybe thats why. But yea The Stones ruled, Midnight Rambler being a show stopper. The fans well enough said. The Sound horrible but i did get the poster.

Poor Sound, High prices, Driving hassles, this is 2006 (not 1966) !! Everybody's got big screens and surround sound at home so why not just put the show on pay perview? It sounded pretty good on Satellite Radio through Direct TV but they could have thrown in a few more songs (As Tears Go By and Paint it Black, AT LEAST) for such a unique, once in a lifetime show. Sounded short to me. As far as going to some theater with no alcohol and those crappy little seats,no thanks, I'll just wait for the DVD (official or "other").....

i can deal with the no alcohol, its the no smoking that got to me.

I agree Drake, this could all have been done at home, I would have paid for the pay per view, have a little Stones party with some friends, drink, smoke,etc, Crank it up, relax, and enjoy it. Don't know who was in charge of this one but it really sounds about as brilliant as the recent "Rarerties" CD release - both COULD HAVE been done right with a little brain effort...

Does anybody have any idea at all when this show is coming out on the oficial DVD?

JumpingKentFlash

The theater in Lancaster NY had it CRANKED, the mix was bad but it was very loud. In fact you had to shout a low yell to be heard if you were sitting next to someone. It's great to leave a movie house and have you ears ringing!!

I went to see it in Westborough, MASSACHUSETTS. There were barely 50 people there in a theater that held at least 200. It was a radio-sponsered event, the dj was down in the front with a pathetic walkie-talkie, and when he asked how many had heard about the show from the radio station, only 2 people responded.

The sound on JJF was so low, I swear if I didn't know the set list, I wouldn't have known what they were playing. I started yelling "Turn it up!" and looked around and everyone was staring at me like I had 2 heads. So I thought maybe it was me. I went out to the front desk(quite a walk in a 20-theater complex) and cut in line and told the guy at the desk to turn the sound up. He said he was working on it now. I walked back to the theater and it wasn't any better, but as soon as i sat down, the volume boosted considerably and everyone applauded. I guess in the old days everyone would have been with me yelling for the volume, rather than sitting there with their large butter popcorn and industrial-size drink getting fatter. What's happened to Stones fans/rockers?

Anyway, the concert itself was great... I gave in finally and just sat back and enjoyed it and blocked out all the annoyances. But yeah the sound did suck, and the picture made Mick look fat, which is hard to do.

I went to see it in downtown D.C. No surround sound but the volume was at a good level. It probably could have been a little louder but it certainly wasn't lacking. I didn't listen to the Internet feed on the actual night of the show so this was my first viewing/listening and I thought it was a solid performance, setlist notwithstanding. Loved 'Rambler' and 'Rain Fall Down'. Somebody on another thread mentioned this would be a good one to stretch out; I agree. When Keith and Ronnie came in after Darryl's bass 'solo', they were really cookin'.
Hey MicksBrain- not "everybody" has big screen and surround sound at home. Hell, I don't even have cable. That's a $50 a month luxury that's just not in my budget.

The Rio movie in my town: HOW DID IT SUCK?
Let me count the ways...

1. The opening segment was lame basically showing long shots of the (now WAY tired) beginning of the show effects - TWICE.

2. The sound came on like a single speaker from a 12" TV - raspy, tinny and distorted. The theater turned it up as the show went on but it was still raspy, tinny and distorted - just louder. Moreover I was convinced it was all in center channel MONO. The only audio seperation to be heard was from screaming audience members, not the band. NO bottom end. NO rear channels.

3. The picture was dark and muted throughout the film giving it a morose and depressing feeling. It was practically black and white! The long shots of the crowd in the indisernible darkness were too much and too often. The digital video recording was unable to capture ANY degree of subtlety or detail in the picture reducing what little bright light they did attempt to show to massive monochromatic blobs. This is RIO for goddsakes! One of the most colorful destinations in the world!

4. After the SECOND sound drop out, somewhere around "Wild Horses" I ventured to the lobby to learn what might be my chances of a refund. "Zip, zero" said the manager as they were merely renting the facility to the outfit promoting the show. He told me to e-mail them (as I intend to do) and wished me luck.

5. The transfer of the digital video recording to the large screen resulted in a herky-jerky appearance to the rapid motion segments. Mick clapping his hands over his head as he trotted down the walkway looked like a silent era film being shown on a 24 frames per sec projecter when it was made at 30FPS.

6. The finale of "Brown Sugar" was shown entirely from directly overhead (apparently from a chopper). No waves to the audience, no bows, no lights or fireworks.

7. The annoying rapid edits endemic to virtually all concert films, except those by Johnathan Demme and Martin Scorsese, were present with virtually all the focus on Mick. Wouldn't it be interesting to see how some of those famous Keith riffs and runs are actually played?

8. Twas no fault of the "filmmakers" but, contrary to some posts above, Ronnie was like the walking dead. I'm his biggest apologist because when he's on HE'S ON. But the Rio show found him stumbling, inept and vaccuous for the most part. He was CLUELESS as to what to do in "RAin Fall Down" (Admittedly Keith wasn't much better) and his normally terrific solo in "YCAGWYW" was a trainwreck. All his strident slide guitar solos on the newer stuff sound the same (think "RJ," "YGMR"). He appeared to be trying his best but the damage is done I fear. He had a haunted look about him.

9. Keith hit more than his share of bum notes and despite Mick being more emotive than usual, this Rolling Stones performance was average at best.

Final analysis: The Rio concert film was the theatrical equivalent of the "Live Licks" CD.

TERRIBLE.

Sound/mix in Nashville theater was poor but was better after they at least turned it up a bit.
Same complaint as others, no sidewall speakers, only from the front.

Mick was tremendous !

tommyquinn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I guess in the old days
> everyone would have been with me yelling for the
> volume, rather than sitting there with their large
> butter popcorn and industrial-size drink getting
> fatter.

It doesn't do any good to yell anymore. No one is up in the projection booth since the theater owners broke up the projectionist unions years ago. You have to do what you did, get up and go tell someone.

R wrote:



>8. Twas no fault of the "filmmakers" but, contrary to some posts above, Ronnie was like the walking dead. I'm his biggest apologist because when he's on HE'S ON. But the Rio show found him stumbling, inept and vaccuous for the most part. He was CLUELESS as to what to do in "RAin Fall Down" (Admittedly Keith wasn't much better) and his normally terrific solo in "YCAGWYW" was a trainwreck. All his strident slide guitar solos on the newer stuff sound the same (think "RJ," "YGMR"). He appeared to be trying his best but the damage is done I fear. He had a haunted look about him


100 % true. Rough justice was horrid. I cringed every time Ronnie played a note.

artinis1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> from nick,
> did they show the whole concert


Yes they did.I thought they performed very well.Not many mistakes and Ronnie was with it ,for the most part.

==========not "everybody" has big screen and surround sound at home. Hell, I don't even have cable. That's a $50 a month luxury that's just not in my budget. =======

I dig where you're coming from, Roscoe. I'm not poor by any means, but I've got too many other expenses (....mortgage payments, groceries, insurance, gas, utilities....on and on and on, ad nauseum...) to blow money on cable or sound systems.

My luxury was getting to see the Stones this way...sure, the sound and screen image sucked but at least it was the Stones and I got to be with people who appreciated them....the social gathering was worth $15 itself.

Exactly. I paid $45 for myself and two others to go, a drop in the bucket compared to what I spent to go to Memphis and Atlanta. It was more than worth the price of admission. It is a shame about the sound, but I managed to have a good time anyway.

If they had a different set list, I would definitely go again just to be with fellow Stones fanatics.

#......Go ahead....Bite the Big Apple....Don't mind the Maggots.....Uh Huh...#

Roscoe and gut, here's an idea. Stop paying hundreds of dollars (or euros or whatever) for a mostly throwaway, greatest hits show which is now down to 2 hours with encore and only 20 songs (My first Stones concert as a kid was LA Forum,1969. They did about 15 songs (at close to 80 minutes maybe) and that was back in the day when a 30 minute Beatles / Stones concert was the norm) To be doing only 20 songs now (surely they could add a second slow one, "As Tears Go By" everynight maybe and one more rare one "Sway"? and both "Cloud" AND "Paint it Black" everynight to make it a total of 23 and 2:15 time length wise wouldn't kill them.I mean, they're really charging a lot for tickets. Save that cash and get a big Screen + Sound system on a no interest for 24 months payment deal (Circuit City or someplace) - that's about $50 a month) and there you have it. If that's still tough (I understand, times ARE tough these days) find a friend that has a good set up. I say cut out the shows first (see one and that's it) IMHO, they just ain't worth the money these days. BTW, my ticket to the Forum Show? $6.00 (and people were bitching about the price even then) Mick's got a lot of kids to feed these days......No offense, I hope you guys can find a way, there's always a 100 ways to get something done in my experience.....

====No offense, I hope you guys can find a way, there's always a 100 ways to get something done in my experience.....====

None taken, Micksbrain. However, I don't want a sound system either. It would be totally wasted on me. I don't care about it that much to want the spend the money. I'd rather give that $50 a month to a Katrina charity to help some folks on the Gulf Coast get their feet on the ground again. Compared to what they are going through, I feel guilty bitching about high-priced Stones products.

Yes, a warhorse movie was too much, but it was a splurge for me.

#......Go ahead....Bite the Big Apple....Don't mind the Maggots.....Uh Huh...#

They couldve done the hokey pokey for 2 hours and I still wouldve gone. I'm genuinely suprised people are complaining about the setlist at the Rio show. They did Rambler. That alone was worth the price of admission.

I feel better now that I did not go to the movie. I'll wait for the DVD.

gut, you have a good point. I would love to see the Stones do a special benefit show for New Orleans before they leave the States for good. I don't know the Arena's around there but the New Orleans one - Super Dome? - is still a giant mess. Maybe they can play a big one in Houston and get a few more bands (Black Crowes, Aerosmith, etc) to help out and bring in a lot of cash for this very special city.I've been watching how 6 months on and not much rebuilding going on in N.O. Government is no where to be found as usual. The whole thing is one big effing disgrace if you ask me.I was lucky enough to go to the Nicaragua (hope I spelt that right) Earthquake Benefit show at the Forum in January 1973 and even though tickets were expensive at the time ($250 / 100 / 50 / 25) it was a super great show with surprises like Route 66 / No Expectations / It's All Over Now / Stray Cat Blues - all songs that weren't part of the '72 tour set list. There's a good bootleg out there (I have the vinyl, assume there's a CD version) with the only thing missing is a kick ass encore of Midnight Rambler (at least on the vinyl it's not there). They could really bring in a lot of help for New Orleans, even bring in more if it's a Pay Per View. I'd get off my wallet for that one (Just play a slightly longer set - 23 songs maybe?).