Away Team

Queensryche

Mindcrime at the Moore Blu Ray DVD

Eagle Vision/Rhino

9 out of 10


In the new digital age of music, where bands have to live on the road to make money and survive due to low album sales and large labels taking bigger and bigger cuts of the percentages from the bands, there are a few bands that have taken their live shows to new levels.

Queensryche is one of those bands. Knowing that in today’s market it is harder and harder to sell tickets and ‘get asses in seats’ the band has taken several original approaches to their live shows in recent years. A few years ago they toured and performed Operation: Mindcrime, their rock opera if you will, in its entirety. Then in preparation for releasing Operation: Mindcrime II they toured again performing Part I in its entirety but this time with actors, more video, and actual surround sound.

With the release of Mindcrime II they once again hit the road, and one upped themselves by performing both albums in their entirety with actors, et al. And in their hometown of Seattle Washington at the Moore Theater they filmed the event and released it on DVD.

Eagle Vision has taken that DVD and high definition film and has released the Blu Ray version of it four years later. This is Queensrÿche’s first Blu Ray release, and it couldn’t be a better place to start.

Everyone knows the storyline for Mindcrime right? I don’t have to go into the premise about Nikki being a heroin user, who is approached by Dr. X to become an assassin for ‘The Cause’. And through his handler Sister Mary who is a nun that used to be a prostitute, who is also hooked on the horse, and ‘takes care’ of Nikki and his needs; he gets his fixes and his release, and love. After a few missions, Dr. X tells Nikki to kill Mary, and that’s when the story takes a turn. Mary dies and Nikki is arrested for the crime. Only according to Nikki he didn’t do it, or at least doesn’t remember doing it.

The album ends with Nikki in an insane asylum trying to remember what happened, and to piece together how Mary died and who did it. Oh look, I DID go into the premise. My bad. The original Mindcrime album was released in 1988 and was originally performed in its entirety on the second leg of the Empire Tour in the early 90’s. Which was released on VHS tape at the time.

If you think you’ve seen Operation: Mindcrime live, and you haven’t seen the full production with actors, then you haven’t seen Operation: Mindcrime done correctly. The answer to who killed Mary is finally answered, the musical interludes between songs tie the entire production together, and the actors add a nice touch instead of detracting from the music. One drawback I see is that there is an actor for Nikki who comes out on stage and interacts with Mary and others, and then when Geoff Tate is singing as Nikki, he interacts with Mary, etc, and can be a little distracting at times. Either he is Nikki or the actor is Nikki, having both of them be Nikki can be confusing at times if you don’t understand the story that well to begin with.

The sound, the imagery, the camera work, are all top notch and the Blu Ray treatment amps it up, and adds a certain intimacy to you being right there on stage or at the stage for the production.

The only other small complaint is that you have to watch the extras to see a song with Ronnie James Dio performing as Dr X. whom he sang all the parts for on Operation: Mindcrime II. It would have been nice to see him in the full production. So there is more consistency from the first album to the second.

That and the fact that the second Operation: Mindcrime is far inferior to the first one are the reasons that this great DVD got a 9 out of 10.

Again, we have two complete albums performed in their entirety, with actors and production, we have one of the best ‘rock operas’ ever recorded performed live and in thunderous 5.1 surround sound, and most importantly we actually, unequivocally, with no room for interpretation, find out what happened to Mary. This alone is worth the price of the DVD to me, as I was wrong in what I thought happened to her for the last 17 years.

Fans of Queensryche will eat up this DVD, and if you were a fan of Operation: Mindcrime then you’ll absolutely love watching it performed in this manner.









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