SOMEWHERE IN SOUTH AMERICA... - LIVE IN BUENOS AIRES

The tour accompanying the release of To Watch the Storms for Steve Hackett produced two very strong live videos, the first being this one, filmed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The sets in both of these videos have somewhat similar flows, but the song choices are drastically different when put up to comparison. Sure there are songs that appear on both such as Mechanical Bride and Los Endos (the latter being a Steve Hackett live staple), but thankfully there is enough diversity in the two dvds to make a purchase of both worthy and not just overkill. Anyway, this live disc is very dark (in terms of lighting) and the sound is crisp and there's a nice balance of instrumentation. There is indeed more emphasis on the guitar, but that was expected becasue ever since Hackett left Genesis his sound became very guitar oriented.

Opening with a short ditty that breaks into a ripping version of Mechanical Bride, one can tell from the get go the intensity and great musicianship from the group. The sole problem with this dvd, though, is too much emphasis is put on Hackett through the camera lens, there are maybe one or two shots of Terry Gregory the entire show, almost the entire thing is focused on Hackett, which may not seem bad to the naked eye, but I'm a person who likes a nice balance of shots between every member to show that there isn't a real bias in terms of camera shots used (call me crazy for feeling that way, too). Anyway, there are some real nice live additions and inventions added here. For instance, Medley has a nice balance of Hackett material, including Ace of Wands, a bit of Los Endos (which would ultimately end the show), Hackett to Pieces, and Please Don't Touch. It's a high intensity instrumental that comes off really well.

Watcher of the Skies on this dvd also gets an instrumental treatment, only the instrumental sections of the song are played (which is a significant portion of the song anyway). Firth of Fifth also gets the expected shortening for just enough time for Hackett's legendary solo. Hackett seems to balance his shows nicely with instrumental and vocal-led material, but this show shows a little more bias to the instrumental side of his music (and the second dvd from this tour has more balanced half and half feeling). Little instrumentals like Wall of Knives and Pollution come off as nice little interludes between the more expansive pieces (such as the epic The Steppes and Vampyre With a Healthy Appetite). One of my favorite songs on this entire disc is In Memoriam, mainly because the backing vocal sounds dead on to the harrowing studio counterpart, which in my opinion was the true highlight of Darktown.

In the end, Hackett's Somewhere in South America is a nice dvd set, but in my opinion Once Above a Time is a better dvd. Sure some of my favorite songs are here (The Steppes, In Memoriam), but I like the overall balance of the Budapest show in Once Above a Time better than this one. My main gripes in this one lie in the fact that way too much emphasis is put on Hackett, and I'm a person who likes to get a lot of shots of all the musicians because at certain points in the song they may be doing something more interesting than what Hackett is doing. But that's only a tiny problem I had with it, overall this is a fantastic dvd that I think all fans of Hackett and Genesis would fall in love with. 4/5.