One Republic: Live in South Africa Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

One Republic: Live in South Africa Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 25, 2018

It’s maybe just a little funny to see something perceived as being as antiquated as MySpace figuring into the success of One Republic, but the good news for internet junkies is that it’s probably the band’s YouTube presence that really upped the ante in terms of global recognition. As the documentary included on this Blu-ray as a supplement proudly touts, One Republic became the first band in history to score over one billion (that’s billion with a b) views for their video of “Counting Stars”. (Recent data suggests they’re well past two billion views now, with several more billion likes added to the total.) One Republic may frankly not be the most innovative band in history, but they’re genial and energetic, plus they have the added allure of some interesting instrumentation, including cello and real live (upright) piano. Perhaps their most winning attribute is their overall earnestness, something that comes through quite clearly in both the South African concert but perhaps especially the aforementioned documentary included on this release.

One Republic's songcraft (most of the tunes were either written or co-written by Ryan Tedder) doesn't ever seriously push the envelope of modern songcraft, but their tunes are always well structured and feature nicely interwoven elements. What struck me in this concert is how often Tedder and his cohorts resort to wordless melismas in quite a few songs, with punctuations of "ooh" and/or "aah" filling out phrases. Tedder is an especially energetic presence throughout the concert, almost assuming Jagger-esque moves at times as he hops, skips and dances around the stage.

One Republic's set list for the concert includes:

• 1. Don't Look Down
• 2. Light It Up
• 3. Secrets
• 4. All the Right Moves
• 5. What You Wanted
• 6. Stop and Stare
• 7. Something I Need
• 8. Apologize
• 9. Preacher
• 10. Good Life
• 11. Counting Stars
• 12. Can't Stop
• 13. Au Revoir
• 14. Feel Again
• 15. I Lived
• 16. Love Runs Out
• 17. What a Wonderful World
• 18. If I Lose Myself
• 19. Wherever I Go

One Republic: Live in South Africa Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

One Republic: Live in South Africa is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Banger Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a generally great looking presentation, despite the surplus of (seemingly unavoidable) blue lighting regimens that often cast the proceedings in a kind of cobalt haze. The opening scenes of South Africa are stunningly gorgeous, though a time lapse sequence shows some pretty notable banding. There's also slight noise in attendance on some of the darker shots, and for some reason several shots of the piano (taken from different angles) are noticeably fuzzier than the rest of the presentation, something that led me to wonder if some kind of lower res camera was being utilized over in that neck of the stage woods (see screenshots 13 and 14 for an idea of what I'm talking about). Directors Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn also cutaway from the band to the audience perhaps more than usual for this kind of concert video, and even have a number of shots taken through various sections of the audience, something that may bother fans who want the coverage to remain "up close and personal" with the band itself.

One Republic: Live in South Africa Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

One Republic: Live in South Africa features nice sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks (as tends to be the case with these Eagle Rock releases, the disc is authored to default to the stereo track, so those wanting the surround track need to be prepared to make the appropriate adjustments). This is not really "head banging" material by any stretch, and so the undeniable added energy of the surround track is arguably not as acute as in some other concert videos, but there's a definite uptick in spaciousness and sonic "oomph" in the midrange and low end. Fidelity is fine throughout, supporting vocals and instrumentation effortlessly. There is quite a bit of audience noise spilling into the mix, something that's perhaps more evident on the surround track, and so fans wanting a more focused presentation of the band itself may want to at least sample the stereo track to see how they feel about it.

One Republic: Live in South Africa Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Don't Look Down (1080p; 33:12) is a really appealing documentary chronicling the band's rise to prominence. Not only is there some gorgeous footage of South Africa, the interviews are also quite winning. I was especially struck by one of the guys commenting that they're kind of star musicians without being (as they term it ) tethered to celebrity, meaning they get to run around various South African locations without being readily recognized.


• Wherever I Go (1080i; 2:54) finds the band performing live in Sydney. This has a bit of an abrupt start, which may be why it's shunted to the supplement side of things.

One Republic: Live in South Africa Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm sure I'm about to offend countless aficionados of One Republic (and, yes, I'm aware the band's name is often graphically presented as OneRepublic), but as agreeable as the guys all are, their music kind of hits me in that "meh" category. It's fine, but it just doesn't viscerally affect me that deeply, and so my overall score for the concert should be seen within that context. That said, I was really quite delighted by the accompanying documentary, which shows that even MySpace (or, okay, YouTube) stardom doesn't necessarily require arrogance. Video has a few passing issues, but audio is great for those considering a purchase.