Heart: Live at The Royal Albert Hall with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Heart: Live at The Royal Albert Hall with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 2, 2016

Seattle may have become associated with the Grunge Movement of the 1990s and beyond for many younger music fans, but codgers like myself can remember when folks like Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones or even Merrilee Rush were hometown heroes when I was growing up there back in the Dark Ages. Another band that predated Grunge but postdated my time in the Emerald City was Heart, offering the vocal and instrumental forces of the Wilson sisters. It’s at least arguable that Heart really doesn’t belong “solely” to Seattle, given the fact that the Wilsons were born in California and that the band actually made some waves in Canada first, but talk to Pacific Northwesterners of a certain age and you’ll probably get a general view that Heart began as a Seattle phenomenon. The band's success has seen some peaks and valleys through the years, but the sisters are in fine form in this concert which may bring to mind another phenomenon from the era when Jimi and Quincy were being lionized, namely the "cover version". Here, supported by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Heart gives a symphonic twist to its playlist. An appreciative London audience proves that wherever Heart may have started, they've forged a reach that is global and ongoing.

Heart's performance at The Royal Albert Hall contains the following songs:

Magic Man
Heaven
Dreamboat Annie
What About Love
I Jump
Sweet Darlin'
Two
These Dreams
Alone
Beautiful Broken
Mashallah!
Silver Wheels / Crazy On You
Sand
No Quarter
Barracuda
Kick It Out

Heart: Live at The Royal Albert Hall with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Heart: Live at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, and Universal Music Group with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This is a nice looking presentation which is helped by the fact that no extreme lighting regimens are really used throughout the concert, and so the palette looks normal much of the time, and there are no real issues with either banding or posterizing. Close-ups offer nice fine detail (and the concert has a few "arty" framings, as can be seen in a couple of the screenshots). Contrast is also excellent, helping to delineate Ann's black frock from some of the shadowy surroundings.

Heart: Live at The Royal Albert Hall with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Heart: Live at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks. There's quite a substantial difference between these two, though some may like to at least sample the stereo track since Nancy's vocals tend to be just a little bit more forward in the mix in that version. Otherwise, though, the surround mix provides beautiful spaciousness, something that helps some of the increased orchestration in some of the songs ample breathing room. The basic band is well separated and vocals, while occasionally a little buried (at least to my taste), sound great.

Heart: Live at The Royal Albert Hall with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interviews (1080i; 13:49)

Heart: Live at The Royal Albert Hall with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Heart made news back in the day by having two female front(wo)men, something that of course has become more standard in at least some rock groups in the interim. While the band has been accused of trading in its harder rock tendencies for more adult contemporary fare, this concert provides a generous sampling of both "sides" of Heart's sound, and the added weight of the symphony orchestra is supportive without being intrusive. Technical merits are strong, and Heart: Live at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra comes Recommended.