LIVING IN THE MOONLIGHT

You can divide this DVD (the running time 240 minutes!) in diferent parts. The first contains a concert from April 1996, recorded in the Polish city Szczecin. It's a very energetic and enthousiastic performance and Collage plays so wonderfully melodic and harmonic with a full symphonic rock sound. The eye-catcher is singer Robert Amirian, he looks like the archetypical hippie and has a fine voice and a convincing stage-act. But second best is guitarplayer Krysiek Palczewski with his pleasant guitarsound, very flowing and harmonic, evoking Steve Rothery. The keyboardwork is beautiful and alternating, from tender pianoplay and sparkling runs to warm strings and a lush orchestral keyboard sound. The concert contains 12 songs, all very tasteful and professionally performed featuring fiery guitar and lush keyboards in "The blues", great vocals, guitar and keyboards in the compelling "In your eyes", howling guitar licks in "Basnie" (from the wonderful debut-album) and a heavy guitar-intro, bombastic keyboards and an excellent, very moving guitarsolo in "God". Then again the song "God", this time from a concert in Warschau from March 1995 and 7 tracks from the legendary concert in The Dutch Pul in Uden (june 1995), both are acceptable bootleg recordings. Next are 4 video-clips: "Living in the moonlight", "Lovely day", "Heroes cry" and "Midnight flyer". The first two deliver beautiful live-scenes. The final part consists of a menu featuring interviews, a biography, discography and a photo- gallery. IF YOU LIKE INSPIRED NEO-PROGRESSIVE ROCK WITH EMOTION , THIS ONE IS YOURS!!

Nice surprise! Very good musicians (the drummer is awesome, the guitar and keyboards are good). Unfortunately, Amirian looks like he was invited from the public to sing along with the band. Big problems with voice technique and breathing ... should I say no voice at all? Anyway, he is (at least on this dvd concert) thea weakest part of the band. The only weak part! Miles away from the others! Anytime i run this dvd, i just cam wait for the voco parts to be over, in order to listen some music.

Just acquired the DVD and was looking forward to enjoying Collage's great music. I must admit that I am somewhat disappointed. While the instrumental side is great the singer is either having an off day or lost his voice. I actually had to run to my CDs to make sure this is the same person who sings on "Moonshine" and it is. So what happened here? He became tone deaf and couldn't reach the high notes. I'm surprised they allowed the DVD on the market. I have to give this DVD mixed review because of the vocals. Too bad...