Burning Down the House
The Film
Sitting through David Byrne's Ride, Rise, Roar is both an interesting walk down memory lane, but also an exercise in frustration. The former Talking Heads frontman still has the chops to carry a 90-minute show; the concert begins with a rousing rendition of "Once In A Lifetime," but it also introduces a really puzzling element that had me rolling on the floor in laughter. Dancing. And when I say "dancing", I don't mean "David Byrne acting like a robot" dancing that was cool back in 1984. It is more like improvisational dancing that doesn't really match the music being performed.
I don't mean to be overly harsh on the performers who clearly put a lot of work into the show, but it's utterly ridiculous to watch. Ballet isn't my cup of tea; I generally attend shows at Lincoln Center just to enjoy the music, but at least the movement on stage is perfectly synchronized with the music.
Byrne and songwriting genius Brian Eno crafted a marvelous album in 2008 entitled Everything That Happens Will Happen Today and Byrne performs four tracks from the recording here. That's the good news. The bad news is that the dancers (including the singers who get into the act) go off the reservation and it is quite distracting. The live concert footage is broken up by a series of segments that explain the dancing, show the band preparing for the show, and Byrne riding around NYC's West Village/Chelsea looking for a place to get a good cup of coffee. Try Cafe Grumpy, David.
By the time "Burning Down the House" rolls around, I was ready to set fire to the disc.
The Picture
The Blu-ray suffers from almost no screen noise or artifacts and will make the most of a well-calibrated display.
The Sound
David Byrne has always championed high fidelity and this Blu-ray transfer does not disappoint in that department. There are three audio tracks; DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, and LPCM 2.0, and I generally liked listening to all of them. The DTS-HD Master Audio mix has a really wide sounding soundstage, and vocals were all quite clear and punchy sounding. The surround channels added some additional ambience, and I found the performance rather immersive. There really wasn't an abundance of low frequency information; most of it was confined to the front left/right loudspeakers.
Oddly enough, the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 track was even more impressive with greater apparent levels of detail, better localization of spatial effects, and a punchier sounding midrange. This isn't the first Dolby Digital mix I've heard of late that was more impressive than the lossless HD audio track on the same disc. One would think these would be sourced from the same mix, but that does not appear to be the case. Perhaps the more limited dynamic range of the lossy mix actually gives it more punch? The 2.0 LPCM mix was also quite good, but I would stick with one of the surround mixes.
The Extras
Eagle Rock usually puts some great bonus content on their concert videos, but this Blu-ray transfer is like Old Mother Hubbard's Cupboard; it's bare. Someone throw us a bone. Anything.
Final Thoughts
After watching Ride, Rise, Roar, I felt the need to revisit Speaking in Tongues which in my mind was the Talking Heads at their very best. David Byrne is as crazy as he ever was, but not even the solid tracks from his great collaboration with Brian Eno can make this Blu-ray concert all that memorable; the dancing is just too damn distracting (didn't some guy say that about the rent in NYC?). The sonics and video quality are all first-rate, but the show just doesn't measure up; it's too quirky for its own good. Worth a rental for die-hard fans. But for repeated viewings, you might just want to turn the TV off
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