The Queen of Symphonic Rock, Lana Lane joins the DVD era with a archival release of her live performances from 1997 until her last tour in 2003. This is without a doubt a collection of her greatest songs recorded at various places from her European and Japanese tours. The DVD has some 20 songs, band interviews (which you can have the choice of playing separate or in between the live songs). You get a nice insightful look behind the scenes, especially for most of her fan’s in the USA that may not have seen her live, like myself. Lana and husband Erik Norlander always assemble a great group of musicians to help realize their music. We also get a candid look behind the scenes with footage of various activities in various places along her touring schedule.
Many of her most well known songs are here, including one of my favorites "Queen of the Ocean" which to me is a song that defines what she’s all about. Her powerful emotion driven vocals always hit the spot for me. Other favorites of mine are "Destination Roswell" and "Night Falls".
Fans of her last heavier releases will rejoice with amazing and powerful renditions of "Secrets of Astrology", "Escher's Staircase", "Frankenstein Unbound", and another favorite of mine,"The Beast Within You", featuring ex-Black Sabbath/ Dio drummer Vinny Appice pounding away on his drum kit just like he did with his former bands. The other band members are also in top form, especially Peer, who has toured with Lana & Erik before.
The quality of the earlier footage is a bit grainy but the overall audio/video production is well done. In between the seqments, they use a vintage antique titles to introduce the next song. It adds a unique and “classic” look to the DVD. Other than that the audio is amazing especially in the vocal and keyboard areas.
This DVD is must for Lana Lane fans, and for those that haven’t been introduced to her music, this is a great place to start and depending on your tastes you can go from there in her catalog. As I said before, for us unfortunate enough to see Lana live, this DVD partially satisfies until that day when we get to see her in a club or concert hall somewhere in America..
Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on June 29th, 2004
