I love concert DVDs, and frequently rent concerts to watch from Netflix. I grew up on the music of bands like Cheap Trick, and I know all the words to Dream Police I try to sleep they're wide awake, they won't let me alone . Well, I thought that this was a 25 year reunion concert in Tokyo Japan. It is of a sort.

The band's long career is highlighted in this concert DVD in Tokyo, but it is cut up into interviews, backstage footage and finally live song performances. There is NO menu option to just SKIP all the ******* backstage stuff and interview stuff. Moreover, the songs are not performed completely. Most every song performed on this album is just an excerpt of the full song. Since I buy or rent concerts to LISTEN to my favorite bands perform, I shall first evaluate

The Concert Robin Zander on vocals, Bun E. Carlos on drums, Tom Petersson on bass and Rick Neilson on guitar, Cheap Trick are getting older, but they still play fairly well. However, it is not very well showcased on this 25 year anniversary DVD. The concert, instead of being shown en toto is cut up so that you can only watch one song snippet at a time. Its interview, song clip, backstage banter, song clip. I want to put on a concert and listen to it. The song clips included are Just Got Back, Big Eyes, Best Friend, Pop Drone, Words, If you Want my Love, My Obsession, I Want You to Want Me, Fan Club, Carnival game, Look Out, Special One, Scent of a Woman and Surrender. Not ONE song is played long enough to really get involved in it. I would also like to add that Robin Zander sounded terrible. I have seen Cheap Trick a couple times in concert, both about 10 or more years ago, and they sounded much better. Rick Neilson still sounded great on guitar, and the rest of the band sounded good, but Zander's voice just isn't what it was. To put it bluntly, I was very disappointed in the concert for many reasons. One, no song is performed in its entirety. Two, I hate the song format where only one song is performed between talk snippets. Three, the performances aren't that great.

The Interviews /Documentary Stuff Why is it that rock stars think we care about every minutae of their lives and their tours? No one really says ANYTHING of note. They say they travelled a lot on tour in one section called Trains Planes and Automobiles. REally? Wow!, I thought bands magically appeared from venue to venue. In another section entitled Rick's guitars, Rick says he owns over 270 guitars. He shows us 5, all Gibson Les Pauls from 56 to 59. Fascinating, NOT. We don't even get a glimpse at his really cool guitars, like the three neck and five neck guitars or the one that looks like him.

Video Quality / Sound Quality The video quality is fine, its in 4:3 format letterboxed. The sound quality (meaning sound reproduction, not how well the band sounded) was very good, and two tracks were offered, Dolby 2.0 and Dolby 5.1. The show was about one hour, which since it was filled with the bands vacuous chatter, meant about half an hour or less of actual music.

Summary Had the band actually just given us a CONCERT with complete songs back to back, despite the not so good singing of Zander, I would have given this a solid 3 stars. The interviews could have been one set, and the concert another. For the slicing up of the songs, for the mindless information departed in the documentaries, and for the overall lack of substance in this short one hour presentation of 25 years of Cheap Trick, I can only give one star which makes me sad, because in my teenage years, Cheap Trick was one of the first rock n' roll bands I really liked. On occasion my son will see Dad rollin on the couch, rolling numbers rock n roll got his Cheap Trick CDs out, but it won't be this DVD.

(and by the way, that's an adaptation of the song Surrender which has the lyrics and when I woke up Mom and Dad were rollin on the couch , rollin number's rock n roll got my Kiss records out momas alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird. Records were those vinyl things we played on turntables. In my high school days, ownership of Cheap Trick Dream Police was a requirement, like Van Halen I, AC/DC Back in Black and Pink Floyd the Wall)

If you want a fix of Cheap Trick in Japan, get out your Cheap Trick - Live at Budokan CD and listen to that instead.

Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD