Product: Bond - Live at the Royal Albert Hall (2001)
Rating: 4.0
It's always hard the first time around..
As Haylie says in the concert, "This is the very first live performance ever".Being a fan of Bond's, I love the music. To see the music being played visually by the 4 members of the classically-trained quartet, was amazing. It's always nice to see the people behind the sounds of the music, and in the case of Bond, not bad at all.The DVD features tracks from their first album, "Born", "Dallas", and a mix of "Victory".The DVD itself has some extras, one music video of "Wintersun" and another of a performance of "Viva [Orion Mix]". There is also an inteviews with the members of Bond, and even a short 10 question quiz. Answering correctly on all questions unlocks a video of "Victory" and their stay in Cuba where they had taped the music video for "Victory". The questions themselves are not hard to answer, if you make a mistake you can always re-take the quiz. It has the same questions again.The actual concert was quite a drag in sense of excitement, visuals, performance, and prescence. The girls walk around and dance when they are not playing their instruments, I don't think having an actual dance choregraphy would have helped either sides. It was understandable that they would remain rigid and still to play their instruments. The girls played their songs back to back.. there was no real scene changes or clothes changes. The stage itself didn't lend much help as the lighting was simple and the stage itself, very small and bare. The one thing I liked about the concert was that it was truly live.. there was a small group of people playing in the background, with the band consisting of a guitar, bass, drums, percussions, and a keyboard/mixer. In between songs however, one of the girls would say something about the concert or say something about themselves. Gay-Yee introduced the members of the band, though I thought that was unneccesary. After all, do they introduce the characters in a play mid-way? They could have kept the mood going, without interruptions. It was basically just song after song that were played.. "Duel" was interesting to watch as Haylie and Eos "dueled" with their instruments while they played. "Victory" and after that was "Victory (Carnival Mix)" which I did not notice a difference between the two songs. During the Carnival Mix, a bunch of dancers come out, clowns come, lights go crazy.. it's pretty bland. Their attempt at making that songs "carnival-like" and more "fun".It was awesome to see Bond actually perform live.. but the performance lacked so much. As they are going on tour in the U.S. of the summer of 2004.. I hope they improve greatly on the performance itself, because the music, especially their new album, "Classified" does not need any work, and never had.