11 DVD (2008) Review by Karl Watson

If someone said to you "Check out the new Bryan Adams DVD, it has him and the band rehearsing before they go on tour!", you might think "Oh cool. So I presume we get to see them jamming away, perhaps warming up with couple of classics, then trying out the new songs, stopping and starting the songs as they fine tune them, perhaps goofing around playing some covers, y'know, just seeing the band at work!". The person would then reply, "Well no, its actually just the band playing along to the CD, with the songs remixed slightly to make it sound more live. But shhh, don't tell anyone ok!".

What the F**K!?!?! You mean to tell me this band of world class musicians is just miming along to a CD!?! WHY!?

But that's exactly what we have here. Who knows why the band were 'rehearsing' for the 11 tour in February 2008, when in March BA did his solo acoustic tour. Perhaps if they did learn all the songs they would've played more than one song off the 11 album at the gigs between April and September 2008.

This is not to say they haven't tried to be clever with this to make it seem live. Bryan's vocal is actually live, and as mentioned they've remixed the songs slightly to give them a raw feel. Plus, they show moments inbetween the songs with BA strumming the chords or teaching Gary and Keith the backing vocals to "Broken Wings". Of course they shoot themselves in the foot here because when "Broken Wings" starts playing the backing vocals sound completely different to what we've just heard!

Now some of you may be thinking, well who am I to question Bryan? Well, other than being an adult who can think independently with his own ideas and opinions, I'm also a musician, I've worked in recording studios and I even have a degree in Music. However, all of this is completely irrelevant because you just to have to use your eyes and ears. So to those of you who still actually believe this is live, take these things into account:

Exhibit A:
The performance of these "live" versions on the DVD matches the performance on the CD note for note. If you synced the two versions up they would fit perfectly. Now I'm not questioning the quality of the musicians involved, but go and listen to a real live version of one of the songs ('I Thought I'd Seen Everything' is a good example) and notice how the performance doesn't match up. They're playing at a different tempo, Keith's reworked the guitar part, and so on.

Exhibit B:
What you hear on the DVD doesn't match what you see. There are loads of examples of this, particularly with the guitars:

* At times the guitars are strumming when the sound is of them picking;
* Keith's solo in Oxygen uses a waa pedal except in the video he's not using one;
* Sometimes there's three guitars playing when there's only Bryan and Keith there;
* Watch the intro of 'I Thought I'd Seen Everything' and watch Bryan strum the guitar and no sounds comes out;
* Mickey will be using the hi-hat cymbal when the sound is of a ride cymbal;
* Keith & Gary will be singing backing vocals when the sound you hear is actually Bryan's backing vocals;
* There are engineered sounds that can only be produced in the studio such as the effect on the guitar solo in 'Tonight We Have The Stars' or the fade in sound of 'I Thought I'd Seen Everything'.

The list goes on and on and on.

Exhibit C:
Go and learn about the physics of sound waves. The performane on the DVD sounds exactly the same as the CD. The only way to achieve this is by recording the exact same performer playing the exact same instrument, using the exact same microphone in the exact same room.

Exhibit D:
The DVD features them playing the new mix of 'She's Got A Way'. The new mix was recorded (I believe) in July/August 2008. This DVD was filmed in February 2008. So unless Bryan has his own time machine, then they're not playing live.

This is what gets me so annoyed about this DVD. If they just said "yeah we're not playing live" then fine, it would just be a crap DVD. But the fact they try to pretend it's live is just an insult to our intelligence. Having the artist mime along to the CD is something I'd expect from Britney Spears, but not Bryan Adams!

Why not release a DVD of an actual live performance? The 5-piece band has come on leaps and bounds since the Lisbon DVD! Or why not release a DVD of Bryan's solo acoustic shows? These concerrts are simply amazing and a DVD of one of them would easily be worth 5 stars. Or even a DVD of the band genuinely in rehearsal, working things out as a group of musicians.

Having said all this, the DVD is shot and edited quite nicely. They go a bit over the top with colour grade for my tastes, and they lose marks for the 'She's Got A Way' video, since they had to speed the footage up to the match the tempo of the new mix, which explains some of the frame blending and sudden movements.

A couple of the moments inbetween songs such as Keith being in shock at how quick Bryan tuned his guitar down are quite nice, but they're not enough to redeem this from being a complete waste of a DVD.

Key Tracks:
Are you F**KING kidding me!?

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