There's always a first time. First time I review a live DVD, first time a trance group made one, and no surprise it is that it is Son Kite who did that. Probably the most professional trance duo, sends us this DVD as a part of the Colours project, which included also the Colours album, the On Air remixes CDS and the Colours remixes CDS. The bright red package includes 2 DVDs- the first is 91 minutes of Son Kite live in Tokyo in Halloween of 2003, the second has 3 short documentaries and 3 video clips.
The live was held in an impressive huge domed indoor venue that I imagine you can find only in Japan. Music-wise it flows beautifully, starting slowly and spacey and building up with hypnotic power and injections of emotional energy you usually get from Son Kite's music. It all explodes with the amazing remix to Newport and just goes higher and higher then, climaxing with the remix to Cosma's Out of Range, and coming to an end smoothly with the beautiful remix to Wonderer.
As to the visual side of things, well, trance lives are not very exciting thing to see to begin with usually, without a crazy drummer or long haired man with tights squeezing guitars or huge sweating sex machines with afro hairdos, how exciting can it get (excluding Juan, but he has an afro...)? So the DVD starts with mostly shots of the live and the crowd jumping and some occasional visuals, to turn more and more into the visual side, which makes it more interesting, and with the Newport remix, one of my favorite Son Kite tracks by the way, things really start to get more and more visual, with occasional glimpses to the party. It all sits down, or rather jumps up, very nicely with the music. I would love to see more visuals earlier. Also it would be nice to see more of the party people. I mean, if you're in a party and you're not dancing (which is the case here, I guess)- what do you do? Walk (or trot) around the crowd and look at the always interesting faces and people jumping- the cameras should have done that more. And they were very interesting of course, as you can expect from a crazy Japanese crowd in Halloween. Third place in my custom competition goes to the bird, second to the beautiful dancing officer of the law, and first place goes to the mushroom!
On the second DVD you get some glimpses to the backstage of the concert and the people involved. Then some more glimpses to Son Kite shows around the globe, including Samothraki, which makes me wish the live was recorded there (Just the colours! It is called the Colours project after all...). And to top it a nice short documentary of a hectic weekend around the globe for Son Kite (it's not all fame and glory, ppl), accompanied by the cutest music made by Seb.
Then there are the 3 video clips, with short edits of the tracks. They're a nice bonus, but non stands out. |
