Ted Nugent: Motor City Mayhem on Blu-ray Disc Review
By Brandon A. DuHamel
The Performance
No one can accuse Ted Nugent of not speaking his mind. In fact, the ultra-conservative can hardly keep from running his mouth during the show in between numbers, but, thankfully, this 2008 Independence Day concert in Detroit, Michigan is free from any overtly political comments, leaving fans of the music free to enjoy the hard rock. Never mind the huge NRA (National Rifle Association) logo on the stage's back drop and the opening performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" complete with a model popping out of a cake clad in a bikini of the Stars & Stripes, Nugent rocks and mostly keeps his opinions to himself. Of course, he just can't help throwing in some footage of himself and others bow hunting and speaking of "cleansing the spirit" by killing polar bears and grizzlies.
Still, the band is tight as Nugent runs through hits spanning his entire career on this, his 6,000th show. His vocals, scratchy as ever, don't seem to have lost any of their edge, and his guitar skills have never been in question. "Cat Scratch Fever," "Great White Buffalo," "Geronimo and Me," and "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" are all here along with some energetic covers, like "Baby Please Don't Go" and "Soul Man." During the performance of "Honky Tonk," Nugent even brings out his old guitar instructor, Joe Padorsek, to play along.
Having seen Ted Nugent open for Aerosmith on their
Done with Mirrors tour in the 80's, I can attest to the fact that Nugent's performance hasn't lost a thing, the guitar still shreds and he is still full of energy. Just as I did back then, however, I find his music to be quite repetitive. After about twenty or thirty minutes, all of his songs start to sound the same to these ears, and his performance of them begins to lack anything new or original. Still, one can hardly fault the man for sticking to his guns (or, bows and arrows, as the case may be) for all these years when other acts from his era have either long since sold out, vanished, or stopped touring so often. Nugent has toured annually ever since 1967, which is truly an accomplishment.
The Picture
Arriving in a 1.78:1 AVC/MPEG-4 encoding of its original 1080i source,
Motor City Mayhem has lifelike colors and flesh tones and good contrast levels. Although detail is decent, there are some occasional motion artifacts visible and black levels are inconsistent looking at times inky and at others washed out. Theirs is also a somewhat high level of video noise and darker areas of the picture suffer from some really bad posterization effects. These deficits by no means make the release unwatchable, but it is not reference quality and it is one of the weaker looking concert videos on BD from Eagle Rock.
The Sound
Ted Nugent: Motor City Mayhem is provided with LPCM 2.0, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio options. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is mixed from an audience perspective with large amounts of ambience sent into the surround channels. Instrumental separation across the front three channels is good, with Nugent's guitar clear in the left channel, the drum kit panning across all three channels distinctly and audible, but a little low, bass anchoring the whole package. The LPCM mix is similar in sound, but is slightly thinner still in the lower frequencies.
Both mixes suffer from an excessive boost in the upper-midrange and higher frequencies, making them very fatiguing to the ears after awhile. Cymbal hits sound a little harsh and far too prevalent in the mix. Dynamics are nearly non-existent, as everything seems to be pushed to the highest, but this is certainly not unexpected for a hard rock show. On the positive side, Nugent's vocals are never lost in the fray and his guitar sounds quite full and round.
The Extras
There are no extras provided on this release.
Final Thoughts
Ted Nugent can definitely still rock and fans of his music are certainly going to appreciate this Blu-ray concert release, even if the sound and audio are somewhat below reference quality.
Where to Buy
Product Details
- Performer: Ted Nugent
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Audio/Language: English LPCM 2.0, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, and Dolby Digital 5.1
- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Rating: NR (Not Rated)
- Studio: Eagle Rock Ent
- Blu-ray Disc Release Date: June 30, 2009
- Run Time: 123 minutes
- List Price: $24.98
