I went to the Lancaster Pa. showing with 3 others and there were probably 50 people there all together. I don't believe anything was done differently and there was no censorship of any words in the show. We all had a good time.

How was that like. Did you just all sit there and watched it like a normal movie or were people standing clapping in there hands singing a long and maybe even dancing?

Cheers,
Wuudy

yeah, i always wanted to know that

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.

Hmm, I don't feel as bad about not being there now.

Most people at my showing in Pa. were singing to the songs. We also had no audio problems.

Most people at my showing in Pa. were singing to the songs. We also had no audio problems.

At the movie here in Pa. we had no audio problems. Most people were indeed singing to the songs.

Presumably, this "movie" is indentical to the pricey DVD that they are going to try to unload upon 1,000,000 Brazillians as souvenirs of the "free" concert.

My rant from the "Movie Theatre Concert" thread which this falls under...

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. smiling smiley

Drake

Not that I ever seriously considered it (I remember being totally disappointed in watching LSTNT in a theater way back when) - but these sound problem reports confirm the sanity of my decision to decline. What a total sham. You go to a rock and roll movie and you can barely hear the music. That's like going to a "silent era" movie and not being able to see the screen....

Fluck me if there aint more moaning.......

It will all be cleared up when it comes out on official DVD. If there was a bad solo at some point, they just clean it up by overdubbing. The picture is always processed when transferred to a DVD release. Sound will be mixed perfectly. Maybe the theater was a horrible experience, but the DVD will be a gas (Think: The web-feed was great and the DVD will improve from that).

And I still wake up every morning biting my ass because I haven't seen the Rio, let alone Argentina, gigs.

JumpingKentFlash

We had a few minor sound problems at first, but all sounded great after about 5 minutes. The picture was great & the audience was singing, clapping & rocking out.

For those who had problems, I'm guessing it was the theatre...not the film. I will say the sound could have been recorded better, but it wasn't muddy or too low.

Aside from the crappy presentation, It really was like going to a concert without any of the hassles.

People clapped for songs even though there was no Stone to hear it. We didn't care, we sang the "Woo-woo"'s on SFTD and "Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo"'s on MY.

That hot blonde dancing at the top really did it for me.

I really love women who love the Stones...they got taste.

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

I almost went... glad I didn't.

Let me amplify R's point about the rapid editing of concert films nowadays -- it's awful. They don't focus on anything for more than half a second. You can't tell what's going on... it's a nightmare if you're trying to check out gear or copy licks.