2/5 Ain't It Dead Yet?...It's dead now, thanks.
  by J. Rayne (Salisbury, MD United States)
Disc 1 -- the actual tour footage -- is garbage. Half the songs sound worse than they did on the original albums, or even on Doomsday. What the hell happened to the over-the-top stage performances? Most of the time it's just Ogre in front of a screen smearing crap all over himself and trying really hard not to screw up old classics, and failing at it. Skip it. Oh, and the audio/video desynchs frequently, which is not what you'd expect to pay any decent amount of money for.

Disc 2 -- the "Information Warfare" piece is interesting, but I wouldn't say that it added to or detracted from the release. he real gems, though, are the "Eurotrauma" footage and the "Archival Material." Those are what saved this release from being a one-star affair. Often hilarious, "Eurotrauma" is a really cool look at how things were in the glory days, behind-the-scenes. The other footage shows what a SP concert is supposed to look like -- classic. It looks even better when viewed after the abortion of a show on the first disc.

Anyway, I suppose it's worth it for the extras, preferably if you can get it cheap.

3/5 A Strong Argument for the Proper Usage of SMPTE Code
  by The Escapement (Massachusetts)
OK I am not going to focus on the content of the DVD...That's been pretty well covered. The footage is great, and the look/quality of the film is quite nice. I should preface this by saying that I have been a big Puppy fan for about 17 years now.

So, I have to agree with others that the audio not being in sync with the video is pretty annoying. I work in audio, and the live show is pretty much unwatchable as I get angrier and angrier that the audio doesn't match the visuals. Look, I get that this is not a straight live show...it probably has audio from half a dozen shows edited to the film...but when I see the drummer hit a drum...and then hear it a full second later, and extreme close ups of vocals not matching the lips...I have to cry foul. THIS is the reason we have a SMPTE code for the love of god!! To perfectly sync audio from a different source to video footage frame by frame!!!!!

Whoever did the sound/video editing on this should be ashamed of themselves, and have their editing suite taken away...permanently. The scary thing I am 100% sure SMPTE code was used....just not well. It seems rushed, and it really ruins the whole vibe.

Aside from that the audio itself is great!

2/5 Not very live, not very good.
  by D. Colquitt
I've seen Skinny Puppy twice - Two Dark Park and Last Rights tours. Excellent both times. In that lineup Cevin Key played drums live, with the brilliant Dwayne G. (RIP) handling keys and samples and Rave doing sound. The amazing thing about SP back in the day was their ability to do a lot of live improvisation. Dwayne was especially amazing in this regard, to the extent that two back-to-back shows (which I saw on both tours) were pretty different.

In addition, Rave's ability to throw in samples, effects, etc. on the fly from the sound console was just as amazing (I made a point to stand behind the front-of-house sound position to watch him up close - he was also extremely cool and answered any question I had). They sounded very live and yet incredibly dynamic and powerful - the perfect blend of backing beats and sequences, live drums, and live synth and sample manipulation.

I returned this DVD after watching it maybe 4 times. I only did so to make sure it was actually as lame as I initially thought.

In short, it sounds incredibly tracked, and not only that but when they play old songs they are literally playing the same backing tracks mixed straight off of the studio tapes - no attempt to reprogram, re-arrange - nothing. The signature vocoder effect that comes in during the chorus of "Worlock" is obviously a backing track, as is the string synth part that acts as a carrier.

They have a guitar player on stage for some reason - you can never really hear him. When they play "Tin Omen" it's the sample you hear playing off the hard drive, not him. The song hangs on, basically, one chord, and they don't even use him for that.

Add to that a live drummer mixed so low under the programmed beats you can barely hear him and you've got an SP show that, for someone who saw them back in the day, is like taking a shower with lukewarm water.

I guess if you have never seen them and have no experience making industrial music it's ok. If you forget how tracked it is I guess it sounds good, and they have a decent, if generic, light and video show. But it's nothing compared to how they were.

4/5 If you missed the show...
  by A. Taylor (Somewhere in Taiwan at the moment)
Awesome video of the Puppy's 2004 tour, this has all the right stuff for a live concert video. The extras were a big surprise, alot of anti-war, Bush bashin, great stuff!
I saw this tour in L.A.(one of 7 times I have seen them) and this was a great comeback concert, (if you can say comeback). The hard edge guitar is some of the best Skinny Puppy, and highly recommended if you like loud, hard, scary music.

5/5 I felt like I was there at the concert.
  by Brett E. Hegr (Denver, CO)
Well, almost. The seats were good and I drank straight out of the bottle. The DVD wasn't what I thought I had purchased but I'm not at all unhappy about getting it. Very, very, very good quality audio/video and I don't mind watching it often.