Rick Wakeman: The Six Wives of Henry VIII Blu-ray

Rick Wakeman: The Six Wives of Henry VIII

 (2009)

Music



Rick Wakeman's concept album 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII' became a worldwide sensation when it was released in 1973, but it took more than 30 years for the progressive rocker to get a chance to perform it live in its entirety. This presentation captures that concert. Fulfilling a decades-long dream, Wakeman performs the musical suite at Hampton Court Palace to mark the 500th anniversary of the titular king's coronation.

For more details about Rick Wakeman: The Six Wives of Henry VIII on Blu-ray, see the Rick Wakeman: The Six Wives of Henry VIII Blu-ray Review

Rick Wakeman: The Six Wives of Henry VIII Blu-ray, Video Quality

 


Shot with a number of hand-held, crane-mounted, and otherwise mobile high definition video cameras, The Six Wives of Henry VIII is covered from all angles and looks Tudoriffic on Blu-ray—so so sorry for that one—sporting a 1080i/AVC encode that’s colorful, clean, and relatively crisp. Some of the longer, full-stage shots have a tendency to look a little soft, but when the camera operators get right up in Wakeman’s British badger-like face, or show his fingers darting like minnows, the image displays a good deal of fine detail, from the crushed velvet and glittery sequins of the keyboardist’s many cloaks, to the smallest knobs and sliders of his multi-synth set-up. The ever-shifting stage lights cast the musicians in vivid purples, blues, reds, and yellows, but the artificial fog that’s occasionally rolled out plays havoc with the exposure, blowing out highlights and dampening contrast. You can’t really blame the transfer for this, but it’s there. Likewise, the image sometimes demonstrates the drawbacks of shooting on less than top-of-the-line high definition video equipment. You’ll catch some infrequent aliasing on some of the finer lines, and hard edges give off slight haloes at times. That said, there’s very little digital noise in the image, and I didn’t spot any overt banding or macroblocking issues. There are few distractions, in general. If you’ve seen an HD video-shot concert on Blu-ray before, you’re likely already familiar with what you’ll be getting with this one.

Do note that as it was nearly impossible to capture screenshots in 1080i, all of the stills here were captured in 720p and do not represent this disc's full visual quality.

Rick Wakeman: The Six Wives of Henry VIII Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 


The disc includes three audio options, one of which is excellent. The other two? Not so much. The default Linear PCM 2.0 mix is strong dynamically, but at times it seems to creep out of sync with the video, which is endlessly irritating if you’re paying attention. Also skip the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, simply because a better option exists. And that would be the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track, which has all the grandeur befitting of a prog-rock magnum opus. Keyboards, as you’d expect, are front and center here, both physically on-stage and sonically. Wakeman’s analog synthesizers buzz with potent low-end saw waves and chirp with tweaked-out intensity, and his digital keyboards get a massive workout with bright, harpsichord-like, nimble-fingered arpeggios. In a way, the other instruments are just a backdrop for Wakeman’s insane solos—I do wish the guitars had more bite, and the drums aren’t as crisp as they could be—but there’s ample distinction between sounds and the orchestral arrangements provide perfectly sweeping ambience. The surround channels are constantly engaged to fill out the sound-space, both with music and the cheers of the crowd, and Brian Blessed’s readings are crisp and clean. Wakeman’s prog-rock acolytes should be pleased.

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