Tina Turner - One Last Time In Concert on DVD

Tina wraps up her tour, and apparently her touring, with a bang in this powerful concert shot in 2000.

Now, we’ve never been really big Tina Turner fans, though we’ve liked some of her stuff. But we aren’t aficionados such as populate the audience of this Wembley Stadium bash - yet this concert still managed to blow us away! It has such energy (feeding off Ms. Turner herself, undoubtedly) and such great production values it made us wish we’d been there.

Well, actually it doesn’t. The last time we were at a big stadium-type concert was U2’s “Pop” tour, where we were on the stadium floor and couldn’t see a damn thing because of all the tall people standing on their chairs between us and the stage. And the audio there was definitely live, but muffled and blocked by the assembled multitude.

So, other than the electricity one gets from actually being there, we’ll take a good DVD of a concert any day, especially if it’s done in anamorphic widescreen and has good sound that captures the power of the performers and the ambience of the crowd.

And those are things this DVD does very well. The picture looks soft at times, with strange colors, but in the end we concluded it was due to the lighting and the effects on the stage because “when it wants to,” the picture comes alive and just about leaps off the screen and into your home theater. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration but you get the point.

Likewise the audio, which gives you the choice of Dolby Digital or dts 4.1 surround, is also very good indeed. Concert audio is rarely as good as that you can get in the studio, for obvious reasons, but what may be lacking in finesse and absolute fidelity is made up for in dynamic power - and this concert proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. The band is tight, the star is in fine voice, and the producers have transmitted that to the home theater very well.

This is a Big Concert, with a full band, five backup signers/dancers and a light/video show that undoubtedly signals ultra high original ticket prices. And by the time the last song had flowed over us, we were nearly as exhausted as we imagine the performers must have been - and all we had to do was put in the disc and crank it up!

The concert itself covers Tina’s career from the 1960’s on, even including her hit “The Acid Queen” from the 1975 movie of The Who’s Tommy. Here’s a track list:

I want to take you higher
Absolutely nothing's changed
Fool in Love
Acid Queen
River Deep Mountain High
We Don't Need Another Hero
Better Be Good To Me
Private Dancer
Let's Stay Together
What's Love Got To Do With It
Help
Whatever You Need
Try a Little Tenderness
I Heard it Through the Grapevine
Addicted to Love
Simply the Best
Proud Mary
Nutbush City Limits
Twenty Four Seven

The backup band/singers get the chance to perform on their own, too, when Tina periodically heads backstage to change into yet another outfit. The whole is indeed greater than the sum of the parts.

For extras, you get an interesting back stage look at Tina and the concert in which she comes off as a pretty decent individual. It’s a neat look at life behind the stage.

Whether you’re a Tina Turner fan or not, this is definitely a concert to enjoy. We wish they’d have included a center front channel because at times we thought Tina got a little muddy and that might have been cleared up by the use of this usually vital channel, but overall this is a fairly small complaint.

Tina Turner, One Last Time Live In Concert, from Eagle Vision
120 min. anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1, 16x9 TV compatible), Dolby Digital and dts 4.1 surround

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