Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse Blu-ray Movie Review

Pink Floyd has been at the forefront of bands releasing really spectacular packages including Blu-ray discs, and I've had the pleasure of reviewing several of them, including Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here and Pink Floyd: The Later Years. I haven't yet gotten around to Pink Floyd: The Early Years since its current 600 dollar - plus! price tag is a bit of an issue, but for cheapskates like myself who may want a sampling of the band's nascent material, Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse may provide at least a bit of interesting content. Mason has long stood (or sat, as the case may be, considering the fact that he's a drummer) in the shadow of the often troubled, even acrimonious at times, relationship between Roger Waters and David Gilmour, but he put together this whimsically titled band (Saucerful of Secrets is evidently the band's moniker, culled from the Pink Floyd tune that they also do during this concert) to perform a bunch of Pink Floyd's earliest material. This live concert at London's Roundhouse, a venue with connections to Pink Floyd itself, finds Mason and his bandmates cavorting through some arguably lesser known Floyd tunes, in an offering that also contains interstitial behind the scenes rehearsal footage and a few other stylistic bells and whistles to keep it visually interesting.

1. Beginnings


2. Interstellar Overdrive


3. Astronomy Domine


4. Lucifer Sam


5. Fearless


6. Obscured by Clouds


7. When You're In


8. Remember a Day


9. Arnold Layne


10. Vegetable Man


11. If


12. Atom Heart Another


13. If (Reprise)


14. The File Song


15. Green is the Colour


16. Let There Be More Light


17. Childhood's End


18. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun


19. See Emily Play


20. Bike


21. One of These Days


22. A Saucerful of Secrets


23. Point Me at the Sky

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sony Music with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. This is quite a striking presentation, not necessarily due to the actual concert footage, which admittedly has some cool lighting effects, as can be seen in the first and second screenshots accompanying this review, but in terms of some of the brief but interesting interstitial material that is offered. This includes "backstage" things like the audio boards being monitored or even the band in rehearsals, but it does give this piece a nicely distinctive appearance. Detail levels are typically excellent throughout, though they can occasionally falter in some moments where stage lighting is not especially bright. I noticed no major compression anomalies.

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse features LPCM 2.0 and LPCM 5.1 tracks, along with a Dolby Digital 5.1 version. The uncompressed surround track is beautifully mixed, offering well prioritized vocals and sufficient kick (literally and figuratively) in the mid- and low ranges for Mason's propulsive drumming. I'm not a huge fan of overpowering crowd noise in these live concert videos, and while there is certainly ambient spill in this regard, I found this aspect also well handled, offering just enough to document a live audience's presence without making it the focal element. Fidelity is excellent throughout and there are no problems whatsoever in terms of distortion or other issues.

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Band Rehearsals (HD; 4:18) offers more of what looks like some of the same practice session that is used as interstitial material in the main concert feature.


• Interviews

  Nick Mason (HD; 11:54)

  
  

  Dom Beken (HD; 14:08)

  
  

  Gary Kemp (HD; 14:29)

  
  

  Guy Pratt (HD; 15:57)

  
  

  Lee Harris (HD; 11:24)

Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Nick Mason may be "upstage" here courtesy of his drumming position, but he's also center stage in more than one way, and this appealing concert proves how much he contributed to the classic Pink Floyd sound(s?). Anyone who, like me, balks at paying over six hundred bucks for anything will get a nice sampler of early Pink Floyd material here, which both echoes but also builds on the original versions. Technical merits are strong, and Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets: Live at the Roundhouse comes Recommended.