Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Get All You Deserve Blu-ray Movie Review

Every Good Boy Deserves Favor.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 22, 2013

If as the famous song goes “Video Killed the Radio Star”, one might wonder what live concert Blu-rays will do to those known primarily for the dense sonic wanderings of their recorded offerings. It’s a salient question which may spring to mind as one watched Steven Wilson up close and personal as he moves through this concert filmed in Mexico City as part of his Grace for Drowning Tour. What is he doing with his hands, for instance? Is he flitting away unseen insects or is he indulging in some sort of spastic conducting? It’s kind of humorous, probably unintentionally so, but it point out some of the hazards of letting it all hang out on stage when a lot of your audience is used to either more formally structured music videos or in fact no video whatsoever, simply the gorgeously complex sonic wonderment that Wilson regularly offers his listeners. This is a really interesting live performance video for any number of reasons, not necessarily limited to Wilson’s sometimes weird onstage behavior. Get All You Deserve was filmed and edited by Wilson’s frequent collaborator Lasse Hoile, and Hoile is obviously out to craft something that is as much Performance Art (for himself as well as Wilson) as a standard live performance. The video is full of kind of strange effects, including a gigantic screen that has a variety of bizarre and sometimes almost hallucinatory images, as well as a number of other bells and whistles that were obviously added in post, things like a sort of crumpled blue paper scrim that is superimposed on the players quite a bit of the time. Like Wilson’s music itself, this gives a multilayered visual approach that is both revelatory and opaque, almost in equal measure.

Steven Wilson’s music might not seem like an easy transition to live performance venues, for in its original recorded forms it tends to be a marvel of studio engineering (including some of the smartest use of surround technology in popular music), not to mention copious overdubs. But with a crack band including Adam Holzman on keys, Niko Tsonev on guitar, Theo Travis on saxophone, flute, clarinet and keys, Nick Beggs on bass, stick and backing vocals and the absolutely propulsive (yet incredibly nuanced) Marco Minnemann on drums, these songs all make surprisingly fulsome conversions to a live performance format.

I’m running out of people and/or bands to compare Wilson to for those who haven’t yet experienced his genre bashing approach to contemporary songcraft. Just the opening tune is a case in point. A weird drone starts out for quite a while, one which at first sounds like a bizarre combination of an ultralow bagpipe combined with an Indian tanpura, but which slowly morphs and starts revealing more overtones so that was initially an octave reveals fifths. Suddenly out of that basso profundo a startling riff intrudes that is reminiscent of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. And then a heavily phased electric piano starts pounding out tone clusters that might have come from Chick Corea playing with Ornette Coleman. It’s a fascinating mélange of ideas and approaches and it only continues throughout the concert, with everything from folk to pop to jazz to rock popping up seemingly willy-nilly in any given song.

As might be expected, Wilson doesn’t hew to the studio versions of any of these songs, and some are rather incredibly extended, including “Raider II” which becomes an extended jam that lasts virtually a half hour. Some might be tempted to shove Wilson’s music into the already amorphous “progressive rock” category, but the more one listens to it, the more one realizes just how many influences are floating in and out of any given song, something that only becomes more apparent in some of the extended offerings on tap here.

Wilson also doesn’t hog the spotlight either literally or figuratively. Quite often he traipses upstage into the relatively dim areas of the stage (which are only increased by some of the strange video effects superimposed on the imagery), and throughout this concert each and every player gets a chance to shine. If the bulk of the solos fall to Holzman, Tsonev and Travis, Wilson and Minnemann also make their marks, and in fact one might almost call the entire concert an extended Minnemann solo, so important are his rhythms to the overall momentum of the evening.

Also perhaps a little surprisingly, there is at least adequate surround activity going on here, though it’s not at the impeccable level that is usually on display in Wilson’s recordings. A lot of time has obviously been spent in filling the rear channels especially, and though there’s a tendency for the crowd noise to overpower some of those effects, Get All You Deserve provides ample evidence that Wilson is paying attention to the sound design of his live concert offerings as much (or at least nearly as much) as in his detailed studio recordings.

The set list for this concert is:

• 01. Intro ('Citadel')
• 02. No Twilight Within the Courts of the Sun
• 03. Index
• 04. Deform to Form a Star
• 05. Sectarian
• 06. Postcard
• 07. Remainder the Black Dog
• 08. Harmony Korine
• 09. Abandoner
• 10. Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye
• 11. Luminol
• 12. Veneno Para Las Hadas
• 13. No Part of Me
• 14. Raider II
• 15. Get All You Deserve
• 16. Outro ('Litany')

Get All You Deserve Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Get All You Deserve is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kaleidoscope Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Wilson probably should have covered that old Bacharach-David chestnut "Blue on Blue" for this concert, for that's pretty much was filmmaker Lasse Hoile delivers throughout vast swaths of this offering. It's an intentional choice obviously, but it robs a lot of the imagery of any significant fine detail, something that's only exacerbated by the many rather bizarre effects that Hoile then attaches to the basic images. What that means is that a lot of this concert looks like it's being viewed through a haze or gauzy scrim, which may infuriate some viewers but will just as likely appeal to others. When lighting is more or less normal and we are offered close-ups, things pop at least reasonably well (see the first screenshot for a good example). The dimly lit stage also creates some issues with regard to shadow detail, though that said, black levels and contrast are very solid throughout this high definition presentation.

Get All You Deserve Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Get All You Deserve features both a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix as well as an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 stereo fold down. Those who have become entranced (as I have) with the impeccable surround offerings of Wilson's studio recordings may well experience at least a partial letdown here, for things just aren't quite as immersive, due no doubt to the vagaries of a live performance venue and the restrictions afforded by a lack of overdubs and the like. It appears that the great wealth of the music is performed live, though that said, there are computers on stage so there may well have been sequenced material mixed in as well. Despite an admittedly minor but noticeable down tick in the surround activity here, there's still ample sonic information delivered to the side and rear channels. Separation of instruments is excellent, and fidelity remains superb. I personally would have preferred a tad less low end, especially when Wilson is singing, but others will probably love the punchiness that the low end provides, even if it occasionally obscures the vocals.

Get All You Deserve Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Gallery (1080p)


• Road Movie (by Adam Holzman) (1080p; 11:47) is a quasi-hallucinatory assemblage of scenes that I assume were taken during a Wilson tour.

Get All You Deserve Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Wilson has a just slightly weird onstage persona which is actually a little funny at times, but it's actually strangely endearing in its own nerdy way. The filming style of this live concert may get on some people's nerves who would prefer to actually see the band in performance, but this is simply one of the latest in a long line of concert videos that is attempting to push the visual envelope and introduce new elements. There's a haunting quality to both Wilson's music and Hoile's contributions. It won't be to everyone's liking, but for those with an adventurous spirit, this is one of the more exciting live performances available on Blu-ray. Highly recommended.