“Live in America / 1992 possess real treasures of a band that was cherished by hundred of thousand fans around the world”
1 Two Bunch Palms 4:43 2 Dolls in the Shadow 2:45 3 Treasure of Innocence 3:42 4 Oriental Haze 4:48 5 Graffiti Street 5:27 6 Backstreet Hero 4:15 7 Phaedra 1988 3:47 8 Love on a Real Train 3:19 9 Hamlet 4:52 10 Purple Haze 3:18 11 Logos 5:04 Eagle Rock Entertainment EVDVD117
(DVD 45:00) (V.F.) (E-Rock)
A VHS tape accompanied the release of 220 Volt Live. Following the spirit of my review of the album, I also acquired Three Phase a few years after the release of 220 Volt Live. I would say a few months later and always in the second-hand market. Except that I didn't wait that much to insert it into my big JVC of the time. I didn't too know what to expect. And what was not my surprise to see the Tangerine Dream that I had seen at La Place des Arts in October 92. The images showed various times of the Dream, from where 3 Phases; the past, the present and the future. The advance of the technologies helping and the cassettes VHS wearing out too quickly, Three Phase became LIVE IN AMERICA/1992 in a format DVD/CD combo in 2004. The work was botched or realized with a total lack of respect for the fans, because the audio/video quality was not enhanced. It was a simple transfer from the VHS source on DVD without any mastering or bonus! With hindsight, this will become very typical in Tangerine Dream's universe.
I said that the video began with Two Bunch Palms, which sounds a little like on 220 Volt Live even if the shooting took place in the Paramount Theatre of Seattle in October 1992. But beyond the music there is the video, the images, which interests us. They are sometimes rather beautiful and other times granular while making us travel in time. There are clips which have livened up the waves of MTV, such as the one of the trio Froese daddy, Froese son and Paul Haslinger on a bicycle in Dolls in the Shadow, pulled out from the Melrose album, or still this itinerant for Treasure of innocence which has a gloomy look, and in black and white one, of a city which seems to me industrial in the years 30-40. We count 5 and a half titles which appear on this LIVE IN AMERICA/1992 as well as on 220 Volt Live. Besides Two Bunch Palms and Treasure of Innocence there is Oriental Haze, where we can admire Linda Spa in all her magnificence as well as effects of travelling neon and the Golden Gate in night of San Francisco, Backstreet Hero which shows us Jerome on guitar and interrupted by night images in a kind of multi-colors geometrical figures that we also find on Phaedra 1988 and on the electronic very rock version of Purple Haze, where we can admire all the ardor of Zlatko Perica on nervous plans of camera as well as the dark color effects and the jets of smokes which make the colors capricious. This is very energetic! The half? Bah... it's the too much shortened version of Hamlet which proposes a short video editing in 3 parallel lines of the mythical trio composed of Franke, Froese and Schmoelling. Moreover, Hamlet makes a nice transition of the quiet exploits of Edgar Froese on guitar with images of the 1977 tour and those of the Seattle concert. It's a pity, I would have liked very well to see the whole title. Graffiti Street, out of Rockoon, has never attracted me, nor its version here decorated of other landscapes of sky nights as in Backstreet Hero. The version of Love on a Real Train proposes also a black and white video which seems to come from the old Western years. Logos closes the end credits of the movie with nice video extracts of TD members, from the Baumann years to the Halsinger's ones. We also see the young Jerome with his father. I found these 5 minutes very charming. I heard, or read somewhere, that there are hundreds of hours like that somewhere around TD's universes. Maybe one day we shall be entitled to all these treasures. Who knows?
Let's be honest here, LIVE IN AMERICA/1992 is a thing that has very badly aged. But there is no place to shout in the swindle here because the DVD comes in combo version with the CD. Thus, we have both for the price of one, or a little near. And if like me you had bought them separate, even used, the time and its technologies played us a nasty trick! But all in all, it's a nice document which digs the past of a band of which the mythical side belongs from now on to Chris Franke and Jerome Froese. It would seem that their vaults are full of small treasures...
Sylvain Lupari (September 7th, 2016) ***½**
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