Kasabian: Live! Live at the O2 Blu-ray Review

Posted July 8th, 2012 by Brandon A. DuHamel

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
Resolution: 1080i/60 (29.970Hz)
Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit), LPCM 2.0 (48kHz/24-bit)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Subtitles Color: White
Region: ABC (Region-Free)
Rating: Unrated
Run Time: 137 Mins.
Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
Studio: Eagle Rock Entertainment
Blu-ray Release Date: June 26, 2012
List Price: $19.98

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Overall

The Performance

Video Quality

Audio Quality

Supplemental Materials

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(All Blu-rayDefinition.com screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Performance

Kasabian haven’t been around for too long, but they are certainly heating up the British music scene, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the American scene. Their eponymous debut album dropped in 2004 and it was immediately evident that their musical style was following through on a long tradition in British rock. It can be tracked all the way back to the glam rock scene of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and T. Rex, through to The Clash and Joy Division, the late 80s/early-90s retro-psychedelia garage-pop of The Stone Roses and The Charlatans, and the swagger of Beatles wannabes Oasis. These lads from Leicestershire have learnt their musical lessons well, however, and have done their best to incorporate the current trends of the music scene into their sounds (unlike Oasis – still stuck in the past, they are). Added to the head-on garage rock and psychedelic meanderings are the pulsating rhythms of rave and even some light country. On top of this is their do no wrong, cocky rock and roll attitude that makes them totally irresistible for a lot of millennials who are, lets face it, absolutely starved for rock heroes in this era of reality show singing competitions.

Kasabian Live! Live at the O2, captured in HD in London’s famous O2 arena on December 15, 2011, features the band live as part of an arena tour of the UK and Ireland for their latest studio effort Velociraptor! It’s a visually stimulating and musically invigorating show that should go down in rock and roll history as one of the best live performances captured on video of a band from this current generation of young acts. The raucous music, high energy level, and wonderful mixture of experimental music, straight-on rock and electronica show that these guys can probably do some wonderful things if they can keep it together.

Highlights include the driving “Shoot the Runner,” the midtempo “Where Did All the Love Go” and the rave up “I Hear Voices.”

Track Listing:

Days Are Forgotten
Shoot The Runner
Velociraptor!
Underdog
Where Did All The Love Go?
I.D.
I Hear Voices
Thick As Thieves
Take Aim
Clubfoot
Re-Wired
Empire
La Fée Verte
Fast Fuse / Pulp Fiction
Goodbye Kiss
L.S.F.
Switchblade Smiles
Vlad The Impaler
Fire

Video Quality

The 1080i/60 AVC/MPEG-4 encodement from Eagle Rock, framed at 2.35:1, does quite well to capture the frenetic camerawork and edits of Kasabian Live!, not to mention the frenzy of flashing lights. There are few motion artifacts to be detected and noise is very limited.

Audio Quality

This is one concert video where switching between the 5.1 and 2.0 mixes doesn’t mean you’re giving much up – and that’s not meant as a criticism. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit) is appropriately big and bold with strong low frequencies supporting the band’s more electronica rhythms, meanwhile the midrange is punchy and natural and vocals are clean. The surround channels carry a good amount of performance space ambience (though it could have been raised just a tad). Going to the LPCM 2.0 (48kHz/24-bit), one finds that an amazing amount of low frequencies are retained and the midrange sounds just as punchy. The mix stays just as balanced and has strong stereo separation.

Supplemental Materials

The sole extra is a half-hour documentary on the band’s tour and, ultimately, the show at the O2. It presents behind the scenes footage of the band at their cocky best.

Extras HD:

Documentary (2.35:1; 1080i/60l 00:29:01)

The Definitive Word

Overall:

Young rockers rejoice! There’s a band for you here doing something, though not entirely new, still quite expressive and energetic. Kasabian Live! Live at the O2, despite its redundant title, is a worthy release to own on Blu-ray.