Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.0

David Gilmour: Remember That Night Blu-ray Movie Review

David Gilmour dazzles at the Royal Albert Hall

Reviewed by Sir Terrence May 28, 2009

Remember that Night directed by David Mallet was filmed over three nights, May 29, 30 and 31, 2006 at London's beautiful Royal Albert Hall during Gilmour's short tour promoting his latest project On An Island. Featuring songs from this latest project, and some Pink Floyd hits as well, Gilmour delivers an exciting performance that delights and mesmerizes the engaged audience throughout the concert. Gilmour also brought several guest stars onstage in the form of David Crosby, Graham Nash, and David Bowie who I almost did not recognize. David is backed by the same group of musicians that joined him on his last tour, except for Nick Mason. Also joining Gilmour is British jazz musician Robert Wyatt who plays a beautiful rendition of “Then I Close My Eyes”.

This concert video is a performance package, with every element delivering at a high level. The band is excellent, from Richard Wright’s keyboard playing to Guy Pratt's bass playing. There is not a week musician in the bunch. Crosby and Nash deliver very sweet delicate harmonies to Gilmour's vocals on “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. There is a cool 23 minute rendition of “Echoes” and David Bowie's made “Arnold Layne” and “Comfortably Numb” his own, as he turned in a fine performance as well. The lighting design by Marc Brickman is exciting, at times eye popping, creative, and completely complimentary of the musical performance. Lasers are also apart of the colorful lighting show, and are not used as gimmicks, but as a complimentary part of the lighting design.

This Blu-ray concert video release is one of the best values released on the format. With a total of five hours of material to scour over - half of that just the concert only, you get two and a half hours of quality bonus features that I found as watchable as the concert itself. There are 13 extra live performances from the tour, three documentaries, and a two promotional music video's. I watched every bit of it, and enjoyed it all. If you are a fan of Pink Floyd, or David Gilmour himself, you must get this concert video as fast as you can.

The set list for the three nights is as follows:

Speak to Me (Mason) Breathe (Waters/Gilmour/Wright) Time (Waters/Mason/Gilmour/Wright) Breathe (Reprise) (Gilmour) Castellorizon (Gilmour)
On an Island (with David Crosby and Graham Nash) (Gilmour/Samson)
The Blue (with David Crosby and Graham Nash) (Gilmour/Samson)
Red Sky at Night (Gilmour)
This Heaven (Gilmour/Samson) Then I Close My Eyes (with Robert Wyatt) (Gilmour)
Smile (Gilmour/Samson)
Take a Breath (Gilmour/Samson)
A Pocketful of Stones (Gilmour/Samson)
Where We Start (Gilmour)
Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Pts. 1-5" (with David Crosby and Graham Nash) (Waters/Gilmour/Wright)
Fat Old Sun (Gilmour)
Coming Back to Life (Gilmour)
High Hopes (Gilmour/Samson)
Echoes (Waters/Gilmour/Wright/Mason)
Wish You Were Here (Gilmour/Waters)
Find the Cost of Freedom (with David Crosby and Graham Nash) (Stills)
Arnold Layne (with David Bowie) (Barrett)
Comfortably Numb (with David Bowie) (Gilmour/Waters)

David Gilmour’s band consists of:

David Gilmour - lead and backing vocals, electric, acoustic, classical on "High Hopes" & lap steel guitars, cümbüs on "Then I Close My Eyes", alto saxophone on "Red Sky at Night"
Richard Wright - lead and backing vocals, Hammond organ, piano, synthesizer
Dick Parry - tenor and baritone saxophones, electronic organ
Phil Manzanera - twelve string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, classical guitar on "High Hopes" & backing vocals
Guy Pratt - bass guitar, double bass, backing vocals, electric guitar on "Then I Close My Eyes"
Jon Carin - synthesizer, backing vocals, lap steel guitar, programming
Steve DiStanislao - drums, percussion & backing vocals

David Gilmour: Remember That Night Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

David Gilmour: Remember that Night comes to the Blu-ray format in a 1080i/VC-1 encode and a screen filling 1:78:1 aspect ratio. The best way to describe the video of this concert is uneven. Sourced from 23 high definition cameras (of various quality), there are times in the concert the images look very clean and clear - with outstanding and stable black levels, and excellent contrast. Colors are very vibrant, featuring well saturated primaries, secondaries and their hues filling the screen boldly and beautifully. Detail is very good in some places, and falling short in others. Some shots, especially the close ups look very good and are full of details, while the long shots suffer from lack of detail and are dogged by compression issues. There were some severe issues with the lighting and the digital cameras creating some unpleasant visual side-effects. When the light intensity goes up especially on long shots, it generates a fair bit of video noise. It is very noticeable with long shots with full white light with dark backgrounds, and with deep intense blues and violets. The spotlights beams cutting through the dark background are especially bad, with noise in the beam, and the other parts of the picture not as noisy. The concert uses a lot of smoke, and that only adds to the problem when combined with the high intensity colored and white lights. The uneven picture quality ruins the lighting show at least, which I thought was an important element of the overall production.

David Gilmour: Remember That Night Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This concert video release offers up three audio choices for your auditory pleasure. Off the top is a very good 5.1 Dolby TrueHD encode at a 24/48 kHz bit and sample rate, followed by a 5.1 Dolby Digital lossy encode at 640kbps, and lastly a LPCM stereo track at a 24/48 kHz bit and sample rate. All the tracks sound really good, but I chose the TrueHD track for its terrific spatial envelopment, and coherent 360 degree sound stage. Vocals are well recorded, with both solo and harmony work that is always clear and well balanced. There are a lot of instruments used in this recording, but they never sound crowded or congested. Bass is ample without being bloated or out of control. All the electric samples from the digital keyboards sound as they should, with no distortion or odd harmonics added. The front sound stage is deep and wide, and folds back coherently into the surrounds. Crowd noises emanate from the surrounds in a very realistic fashion, and occasional they are used within the production for atmospheric effects. Each guitar Gilmour uses has a different sound to it that is easily discernable, and both Manzanera and Gilmour guitar work is easily distinguishable from each other. The center channel while low in level, ties the left and right channels together creating a complete sonic picture of the band.

In comparing the other audio offerings to the lossless one, the Dolby Digital does not sound as good as the LPCM stereo track to the ears. While it has the benefit of the surround channels, it does not have the clarity of the stereo track. All tracks are sure to please, and the use of all three guarantees that everyone will hear good quality sound whether they can decode the new codec's or not.

David Gilmour: Remember That Night Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This release comes with a second disc loaded with entertaining bonus content. For a change we are actually given something informative, interesting, and worth watching. One sweet feature found in the documentary section are sub documentaries which can be accessed by clicking ok on your remote when neon man with the guitar comes on screen.

Bonus tracks from the Albert Hall concerts:

Wot's... Uh the Deal? (Waters/Gilmour)
Dominoes" (Barrett)
Wearing the Inside Out (Wright/Moore)
Arnold Layne (with Richard Wright)
Comfortably Numb (with Richard Wright)

Other bonus tracks:

Dark Globe" (video) (Barrett)
Echoes (Live from Abbey Road. Hidden track after Dark Globe)
Astronomy Domine (Live from Abbey Road)
On an Island promo video
Smile promo video
This Heaven (AOL Sessions performance)
Island Jam (January 2007 version, recorded at 'The Barn')
Footage from the Mermaid Theatre concert (March 2006)
Castellorizon
On an Island
The Blue
Take a Breath
High Hopes

Documentaries:

West Coast Documentary- Filmed between shows in Los Angeles with some shots by Richard Wright.
Breaking Bread, Drinking Wine, a tour documentary by Gavin Elder
The making of On an Island
Photo Gallery
Credits

David Gilmour: Remember That Night Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While I really enjoyed the concert, the image problems really dog this release to a noticeable degree. David Gilmour's performance is definitely top notch, as was his band as well. All the guest brought something to the table, and I cannot say enough about the excellent lighting design and show direction. I would suggest you rent this release first, so you can decide if the image quality is too weak for you to purchase this title. I would image fans of Pink Floyd and David Gilmour specifically would probably not mind the images having issues, because the music is really good on its own.