You’ll notice that I’m going to be doing a whole slew of album/book/movie reviews here in the next few days. Trying to catch up with the new blog, that’s all.

I’ve gotta tell you – DC*B’s Remedy Club Tour Live CD/DVD Combo was one of the most highly-anticipated releases of the year for me. I went to two places to find it out of stock (on the day of release) before ultimately driving 30 miles to pick up a copy.

When I first listened to the CD, it became apparent that the production quality wasn’t stellar. It didn’t seem like a typical Crowder concert to me. I’ve seen them several times live and it’s more often the banter between songs that defines the experience rather than the songs themselves. Musically, it’s a great album. There are several new additions to old DC*B favorites, as well as some newer, updated versions of songs off their latest effort, “Remedy.”

Once I popped in the DVD, it was almost as if I was watching something completely different. I felt like I was at a Crowder concert. I already knew that the filming was done over two different concerts, but I didn’t know that they would cut in shots from both concerts in the middle of the songs. For example, it’s common to see a shot of the band mid-song, and about ten seconds later cut to a different angle of the band, where they’re all wearing different clothes. The music is not interrupted here. This makes it feel like a little less authentic. Even if there were small mistakes, I would have felt better about watching the same concert beginning to end instead of sporadic intrusions by a different-colored-shirt-wearing David Crowder and band.

The DVD extras are fantastic, including many videos of the band teaching you exactly how to play their songs, the exact equipment they use, etc.

Since this is a DVD/CD combo, I’ll separate my ratings.

CD – 3.0 out of 5
DVD – 4.0 out of 5