Styx - Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan TV 1/13/82 (DVD)
Let’s face it, Styx didn’t exactly start cheese free, but by this point it’s positively embarassing. Only two songs (well one and a fraction anyway) here don’t engage the gag reflex fully, the power rocker Blue Collar Man and the symphonic climax of Come Sail Away, but even these songs are just a variety of cheese I could apparently stomach at the moment. The tacky broadway posing of the Paradise Theater material made me laugh for a little while, but after a while this just seems kind of offensive to my, admittedly, subjective principles. It’s late 70s/early 80s arena rock almost defined, Styx are still hanging onto proggy moments at times, small 30 second to one minute sections that show the band as a tight and professional unit, but one’s resistance to the music depends just on how much one can stomach Dennis DeYoung’s vocals and terrible lyrics. And all along I had this feeling I’d seen this stuff back in the early 80s on TV at some point.
The Mars Volta - Tempe 11/9/01 (DVD)
The Mars Volta - Dusseldorf 3/31/02 (DVD)
The Mars Volta, to my ears, put out pretty great CDs, but they may be the worst live band of all time, and after five shows on DVD (these share with three others I’ve watched in the past, I can barely handle them in moderation as it is) and an audio or two, I’m pretty much convinced of the fact. Whatever musical aesthetic you come at this, this balls out, everyone going over the top renders their music featureless and powerless and only occasionally are you reminded of the music on their albums. I like the punkish energy here, but the eternal caterwauling and dynamics-free back up make it sound like a banshee fronting a clashing din. I fear for listening to the CDs everytime I hear MV live, but I can definitely say these are history.