20 Years Strong/River Runs Red: Live

With what may very well be LOA's final commercial product fans should be happy with this CD/DVD package. The Full RRR album plus some of their best songs since thrown onto the end. The band gives a great performance and Keith (pre-Mina change) Caputo sounds phenomenal as well. Bonus stuff on the DVD typical of most band releases, but very cool interviews. If you are or were a Life of Agony fan, especially in the 90's, pick this up!

This truely lives up to my expectations: Keith sounds great, and Joey Z is playing better than ever. The DVD of the concert is really good. I wish I was there for it. The CD has been in my car since the day it was delivered. The sound quality of the recording is exceptional for a live show, way better than I expected. If you are a true Life Of Agony fan you need this CD/DVD set... NO EXCUSES!!

This started out more of as a comment to a previous review, but ran a bit on the long side, so I figured I'd post it as a review instead. Please keep that in mind while reading, & it helps to read the "Major Dissapointment" review first to get context on my comments. That said, as someone who has seen LOA live a number of times since 1993 (although apparently never again if the break-up holds), I can say that they have always made their songs "happier" as you the previous reviewer describes it. I always took the shouts of "Jump! Jump!" & the like as more of a getting-the-crowd-involved attempt rather than a way to make their songs peppy-er. If you've ever been in the middle of one of their pits at a concert, you would see that the audience wasn't shouting "Yippy!" while smashing each other. As for whether or not they are too sloppy for your taste, I guess that's a personal opinion. I always found them to be very good live, but I'm also not as critical of live performances from a technical standpoint I guess. I look more at the spirit of the performance, & as long as that's there, then I am satisfied. As one of my favorite albums of all time, I was excited to see them play it in their entirety again. Even when they were touring for their first album (I was lucky enough to see them twice in that era), they didn't play the entire album with in-between bits, so this is truly something special in my opinion. Plus, for the price (under $15 for a CD/DVD set)it is hard to lose.

A DIFERENCIA DEL DVD DE RIVERS RUN RED LIVE...EL VIDEO DE ESTE DVD ME GUSTA MAS...ADEMAS QUE TRAE UN DISCO DE AUDIO DEL CONCIERTO COMPLETO DEL DISCO RIVERS RUN RED...SI TE GUSTA MUCHO ESTA BANDA Y QUIERES COMPRAR UN DVD CON LAS CANCIONES QUE LOS LLEVARON AL EXITO, ESTE ES EL DVD QUE TIENES QUE TENER...EL DISENO DE LA CAJA ES SENCILLA, TRAE DOS DISCOS Y UN PEQUENO BOOKLET...

I must preface this review by clarifying that I have been a big LOA fan since the very beginning - the genius, groundbreaking album River Runs Red. It and its equally amazing followup, Ugly, are to this day two of my all-time favourite albums, and that's no small feat, as I have pretty much devoted my life to music and make it a point to hear at least one album that I've never heard before every single day. Life of Agony have made some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard. That being said, when I first heard of this dvd being made I was beyond excited, as LOA are one of the very few bands I like that I've never been able to see live. I was more than prepared to order this sight-unseen as soon as it was available for preorder. Luckily I got the chance to see it early. Disappointing doesn't even begin to describe this show. Where do I begin? How about that the dvd/cd starts with over two minutes of cheering before any music, but not on a separate track you can skip on later viewings/listenings. Everytime you want to hear "This Time" you're going to have to sit through over two minutes of cheering. I thought that was extremely self-indulgent, but oh well. Then "This Time" begins, finally, and despite it being a very sad song of abandonment/neglect, the band give it a ridiculously happy performance, and within 2 minutes, the guitar player is yelling at the crowd, "Jump! Jump! Jump! Jump!", which completely destroys the vibe of the song. I think they missed a chorus during "This Time" but wasn't enjoying it enough to rewind and check. It doesn't matter though, because the singer never got through that epic chorus once without botching it/being lazy with it - "got time but you ain't got time for me" has become "got time but you...got time for me", which not only renders the rest of lyrics pointless, but the "ain't" he left out is the crux of the vocal melody, making it completely flat and uninspired both lyrically and musically. And he does this every single time. This continues; the band seems to have completely lost touch with what made these songs so touching and personal to so many people. If you listened to this without understanding English, you'd think these were the happiest songs in the world, which they aren't. Or weren't. If you can deal with that somehow, there is the issue of relatively sloppy musicianship, which is surprising, considering that these songs were never the apex of musicianship to begin with - they're great songs, but they're not challenging to play. The guitarist is especially sloppy; he doesn't palm mute notes/chords when he should be, rendering the performance, as I said, sloppy. This lazy playing comes to a head during the guitar solo of River Runs Red. This was never a particularly challenging solo to begin with(not to say it didn't suit the song), but in this performance, it's altered to be even easier(without any dynamics or feeling), but the guitarist, drummer, and singer are all on completely different pages in it and kind of trainwreck their way back into a chorus. To make the show even worse, all the samples of the "mother" screaming at her kid(the main character of RRR) is included between songs, just like on the album. It totally kills what little momentum has been generated, and is just plain annoying. If somehow you can stay interested in this bastardization of formerly great songs, wait til you get to "Lost at 22." You won't believe what they do to this song. You will then have to admit that Life of Agony has completely lost touch with what made them special in the first place, and now just want to be pop stars(maybe they did all along). It breaks my heart to not enjoy this show - I desparately wanted to, but I have to be honest and say this could be the worst concert video/cd of all time.

echt super Scheibe, da die Band absolut livetauglich ist, kann man sie nur weiterempfehlen. Schade, dass sich die Jungs aufgelöst haben