The Band - The Last Waltz 40th Anniversary - 11 November

I think The Band's performances on this are vastly inferior to Rock Of Ages/Academy Of Music.The mythology about the show seems to have airbrushed the performance.That sad it is a terrific live album.It just suffers in comparison to the Academy Of Music shows.

 

With all the overdubs it is hardly fair to call the Last Waltz a "live" performance. I think anyone who listens to the "un-dubbed" version vs. the Academy of Music will come away with a new appreciation for Academy show.

 

The academy show is great on record and I sure it was even better in person-I wasn't there . But being in the room at Winterland was wonderful. The entire show sounded great at the time.

Now obviously there were performance issues which I didn't notice at the time, but the huge inhaling of drugs by almost everyone didn't help.

 

Well that's just silly.There's plenty of Live albums that are more doctored than Waltz. It's no big deal.

 

Same discs as available via Amazon, etc. sans printed labels. Rhino bought finished/manufactured discs directly from MGM, had artwork printed on the label-side of the disc for inclusion in the box set.
Exact same product. Hence the trailer for "Hitch".

 

Wow. That's incredible. I'm disappointed.

 

Huge drop of the price down to 31 GBP:

The Last Waltz (40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition): Amazon.co.uk: Music

 

Looking for info/advice...

I want to pick up one of the Last Waltz complete boxes. My understanding so far, and please correct me if I’m mistaken:

The audio/mastering is the same for the two boxes.

The first is hdcd encoded, and the 40th is not?

The first box comes with a dvd video of the film, and the 40th comes with a Blu-ray if the film.

I assume the separate dvd-Audio not included in either set is a different animal altogether.

Questions:

Does either the dvd or the Blu-ray contain hi-res audio options? Do either or both contain multi-channel mix?

Is the Blu-ray or the dvd preferred for audio? For video?

Does the dvd-Audio (not in the box sets) have any advantages over the MFSL sacd?

What are the compelling reasons to obtain one box over the other, if any?

Thanks for any input.

 

I assume the two boxes you refer to are the 2001 25th anniversary set (I don't think it was marketed as such, but that's what it was) and the 2016 BLACK 40th anniversary set (vs. the big red book with the shooting script included).

2001 - 4 CDS
2016 Black - 4 CDs / 1 BluRay of the film
2016 Big Red Book - 4 CDs / 2 BluRays - 1 of the film, 1 of 5.1/High Res Stereo and bonus visual content.


Same 2001 remix/mastering on CDs across all sets (in fact same discs!)
HDCD on all.
2001 box has CDs only, no DVD/BD of the movie.
5.1/Hi res stereo on the stand-alone DVD-A is replicated on the second BD in the big red book only.
BD of the film in the 2016 Black/Big Red is the MGM disc of the movie also available separately, which generally is preferred over the DVD for audio/video quality.
The difference between the DVD-A & MoFi is that the DVD-A (and/or second BD in Big Red) features 5.1 and the 2001 mix of the classic line up of tracks. The MoFi SACD features the original mix of the classic 3 LP set.

Compelling reasons?
2001 is cheapest
2016 adds the BD of the movie
2016 Big Red Book has all of the above and adds a BD of the 2001 5.1/High Res Stereo and some bonus video content.

 

Wow, that was the motherload of info and answered all my questions.

Many thanks!

 

Are you positive the 2016 Box or Book contains the same mix including HDCD encoded discs as the 2001? I have both (with 2016 being big red book) but had no idea the discs were effectively clones of the 2001.

 

100% positive. On the disc production side of things, the 4 discs issued in the 2001 set were cross-referenced for the 2013 "Fat Boy" jewel case conversion and again in 2016.
There's only ever been one mastering of these discs.

 

Ya, Neil Young was blitzed.

 

Too bad Neil Diamond wasn't.

 

I love Neil diamond. And the band. And van, and EC...etc.

A shame Diamond is so disrespected. His album, 12 Songs, is amazing. Beginning to end.

 

He is an American icon and rightly so. My comment was tongue-in-cheek.

 

Yea he is, but did seem out-of-place.

 

I never thought so. Even when seeing film when first released. And have watched it a dozen or more times since on dvd, and Blu.

 

Agree. At this point he is as much a part of the permanence of TLW as anyone who performed that night.

 

My one gripe about the 2002 box set is the omission of Georgia On My Mind. Richard nailed it, and it was inexplicably excluded.

 

Is the bonus video content in the second hi-res BD the same bonus video content included in the DVD video but not included in the BD video of the movie, does anyone know?

 

This might have been asked before...I find the mix of the studio-tracks in the movie far better sounding than the album-version. Are these different mixes?

 

The album mixes of all songs are different to the ones in the movie are different, but not drastically

 

Couldn't find the thread on it, but all I have for audio is the original 2 Disc Warner Brothers CD. Can anybody comment on the sound quality differences? The original cd versus the new remastered ones?