| Pat Benatar will always hold a sweet, grinding place in my heart. I became a fan from the "Love is a Battlefield" days. "`Cool drum beat," I thought. Benatar: "Singing is like breathing." Captured with her voice, and beginning to tie her to her previous hits, I got all her albums on CD, and remained an intrigued fan `till the early ninties. Since then her CDs have just gathered dust. My favorite album remains, "Wide Awake in Dreamland" (though "Crimes of Passion" is well done, & well recorded, with the same instruments in each song). |
| Anyway, I saw this concert on a VHS video years ago, and well, thought she was pretty cool. During this concert promoting her "Get Nervous" tour (from her 1982 album, "Get Nervous"), Pat is at the all-time height of her career, and perhaps visually best remembered for wearing that black miniskirt, bra-less thin tank top, red belt, capped with a bi-level hair cut, walking on spiked heels, & vamped in thick make-up. The stage is painted (?) to reflect the inside of a cushioned area of a cell for someone in a straight-jacket (which she adornes on the cover of her "Get Nervous" album). She had won 3 grammys, all albums went platinum, and was definitely known for her powerhouse voice and tough-bitch image. An image she has since not liked. I saw her in an interview from her "7 the Hard Way," tour, relaxed and being asked about fame etc, and I remember her saying that, "when everything was at it's height, that was the worst time, I've ever spent." Which I found interesting. But fame is probably weird to every famous person. I caught her again in another 1988 interview on Good Morning America, slapping the arms on her chair with laughing irritation, and saying that she'll probably be buried with the tough-bitch definition. And most recently, I've read in an interview that she has no idea what she was so angry about in the early eighties. Nevertheless, Pat has always said that she likes to tour and sing live - loves it. In fact, she still tours all the time and past by close to me a few months ago - AGAIN. But I haven't seen her since 1986 in concert. And even now, after her fame has died down, she invites fans on stage to sing with her, her hits for fun. She seems to be enjoying her newly found low-key fame...I digress. What made her famous? Her songs were pretty good, not great, and she was one of the few women in rock (other than pop and disco) music breaking into the scene in 1979 with her hit, "Heartbreaker." Her songs had a pop-song structure with some harder guitar. I'll just say it. Pat is photogenic with her painted almond eyes, pouting mouth, pretty cheekbones, and small nose. Benatar had fierce attitude, laced with definite, sexy femininity. But probably more than anything...that voice. Pat began singing and studying opera in the early 70s. She stopped because she thought it was boring. Her voice is a mezzo soprano; a voice intermediate between a soprano and contralto. Vocally she is thrillingly beautiful on rare occasions when she decides to sing that way. But mostly, as anyone knows her, she blasts or "belts it out." 90% of the time. Nevertheless, she blasts well and hard rock guitars compliment her pipes. Most women in hard rock just don't have the kind of voice she has. Her voice has natural authority, sass, personality, and maturity. During this concert, that HBO taped, the auditorium is packed, & people are jumping. Pat sings with her band commanding authority, definitely flaunting her sexuality and sensuousness to the songs she performs, and obviously delivers a good performance for a rock star. The camera changes views frequently, and swoops around a bit, and that keeps a nice pace going. However, the theatrics are quite minimum compared to today's standards except for lighting. One might say that she doesn't need theatrics... One of the biggest problems with this concert is the fact that, though Benatar is very much enjoying performing - it's in her - she basically does the same thing over and over and over. She sulks, she blasts, she writhes, she struts & she bangs her fist in the air to the beat often. That's it. She shows off the beauty of her voice very few times-usually she's trying to sound tough-, but it does come through during "Fight It Out," and "Fire and Ice." In "We Live for Love," Benatar, sings the (very repetitive) chorus almost effortlessly while her voice soars beautifully. The songs, though I personally like them, are somewhat bombastic and mellowdramatic and Benatar acts like she's in the crisis of her life. She does it over and over and over. As I get older I'm just less taken, I guess. The songs are unique enough to me since I've heard them so much as a fan. However to a non-fan, I suspicion that they would seem to vary little, causing the concert to lose it's charm after the 1st or 2nd song. |
Picture This concert is very darkly lit. Very moody looking. The picture is fairly clear. Pat looks terrific, yet the rest of the band are typically in the shadows. Her husband, Neil Geraldo, plays the main electric guitar (as well as producing and writing most of her songs), and he shows some fun personality now and then as well as the seemingly orgasmic drummer, Myron Grombacher. The picture is a bit too contrasty, whites would bloom, and shadow detail wasn't that great. Often times certain definition is just plain lost. But most of the blacks were quite deep. Grain was apparent; if you did slow motion, it was very evident. My complaints are comparing this concert to the best DVDs I can think of, so I'm not going to be to forgiving, as perhaps I should. Still I guess I wasn't expecting much and, quite frankly, the print didn't look like it had aged. Happily, it look quite new. It's also full frame. |
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Sound
As a pleasant surprise, the sound was Dolby Digital 5.1. The music didn't have any volume disappointments. And at times Benatar roared well. The biggest problem was that the sound of this concert (and her 1983 "Live From Earth" concert album) sounded muddy - instruments and even Pat were consistently indistinct. Bass boomed so out of control that I had to do major adjustments to my audio set up. Hi frequencies seemed a bit harsh, and mid frequencies blared their meshedness. Distinction was a problem. This was sad since the performers seemed well seasoned to their songs. Half the time I was sitting there (yes, mouthing the words to every song like an idiot!) and trying to distinguish between guitars and drums and, sadly, her voice. Benatar, gifted with her huge voice, kept the mic up to her mouth like a pro, but sometimes her vocal sound would fade off even as she was obviously singing. Not good. Almost like there was too much reverb or something - I couldn't figure it out. Her consonants would almost pop and...ya know, it just wasn't as clear as it could've been. Yet the VHS tape was worse. What is so strange is that a new, unearthed "live" CD album recently was released on Benatar originally recorded from about 1980. I've listened to it and the 1980 CD was clearer than this later concert and her her 1983 concert album. So I'm not sure what was going on here. Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed. The surrounds sounded full range, but didn't necessarily carry background sounds as they sounded like tame, front speakers. I don't know. Essentially, I think the sound wasn't recorded with the right frequencies or something. Granted Benatar was a hot star at the time and could've paid for the best recorders and some assured quality control, but that seemed to never happen. I still liked the sound ok, I just thought the 5.1 would clean it up more, but perhaps this was the best that could be done. The fact that there exists an older concert recorded MUCH more discretely is aggrevating, however. |
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Extras & overalls
No extras. None. In fact, on the VHS there is one more song at the end: "Little Paradise." This song has been sadly excluded from the DVD. Perhaps it has to do with royalties from unearthed material capitalized again under the 60 minute rule...this presented concert was under 60 minutes - barely. |
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Overalls
I think Rhino did about the best they could with this material. I also think that this material was stored quite well. What I am ticked off at, is the fact that this concert should've been filmed a bit better and the sound definitely should've been recorded better. I think the DVD and the authoring did it's best with a subpar recorded event. Even though it was 1983, previous concerts looked and sounded professionally better than how this material was handled. It still looks and sounds muddy, when it probably wasn't. Let me finally say that my biggest wish with Benatar would be two extremes. I think that a lot of her rock music isn't hard enough, believe it or not. I think one of her very hard rock songs, "Red Vision" from 1985 with mean heavy guitar and her screaming her lungs out like never before, was EXTREMELY exciting, and I wish she'd do music with much harder, grinding, ruthless sounding guitars. At the same time I would sure like to hear the woman do more love ballads. The only ones that she really has done are 3: "Don't Let it Show" from 1979's "In the Heat of the Night" album, Kate Bush's (the perfectionistic) "Wuthering Heights" from 1980's "Crimes of Passion," and my favorite, the critically scoffed at, 1985 song "Here's My Heart" from the re-themed, remastered, 1920-ish, Franz Lange's cool film, "Metropolis." --not from the separate album sound track (where Benatar disappointingly tries to sound tougher), but straight off the movie in the beginning by the fountain, and during the ending credits - very beautifully sung. If only.... |
