 |
| Images courtesy of Cleopatra Entertainment |
In Detroit, Michigan 1991 at the now defunct and leveled Palace
of Auburn Hills, The American glam metal rock band Cinderella did a now
legendary live show as part of their Heartbreak Station Tour filmed on
video by recurring music video and concert director Jeff Richter. Originally released on DVD in 2005 by
Deadline Music, the eighty-minute concert video upscaled to 480p resolution
from the tape master featuring bandmates Tom Keifer, Eric Brittingham, Jeff LaBar
and Fred Coury on full display at the top of their game. Including some of their most well-known
tracks including Don’t Know What You Got Till Its Gone featured in
Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, Night Songs, Nobody’s Fool and
many more, the concert tape received an audio upgrade in the form of Dolby 5.1
audio. To my ears, the LPCM 2.0 stereo
track sounded a lot better with less raspiness on the vocals and instrumentation.
Circa 2026, the concert film in conjunction with Cleopatra
Entertainment got the 1080p upgrade featuring more or less the same extras as
the DVD release with the picture quality still revealing limitations of the
tape source. For instance, in some
numbers you’ll notice a slight rainbow-colored tracking across the top of the
image but you get used to it after awhile.
Camera movement as originally shot films from low-angles, distant wide
shots that occasionally telephoto zoom into medium close-ups and sometimes
sideline viewpoints, moving roughly 29 frames per second. Despite the source material, for a tape-to-DVD-to-BD
upscale it looks pretty good. The 2.0
sound is a little quiet but decent and sounding very much like a stereo concert
tape would. Again, the 5.1 remix is awful
and blown out, best avoided altogether and much like MVD’s 4K release of Rockers
another example where the original audio bests the remixed tracks.
If you already own the DVD, there’s really not a whole lot
of reason to upgrade. But if you missed
out and wanna enjoy rewatching this on your 4K television, this new 2026
rerelease of Cinderella in Concert will still get the job done. Admittedly this isn’t my go to style of music
but having heard some of the tracks before and now putting a name and face to
it, I appreciated the educational aspects of the viewing experience. Fans of Cinderella as well as Michigan
residents who saw and remembered them from 1991 at the Palace of Auburn Hills
will garner some nostalgia from the concert video. Disc authoring is good sans the 5.1 remix but
there aren’t really any new extras to speak of on the disc upgrade. No matter, I had a good time with this though
the jump from DVD to BD doesn’t show that much audiovisual difference in this
case.
--Andrew Kotwicki
