Dido Live at the Brixton Academy

I recently picked up a concert DVD... Dido Live at the Brixton Academy. Dido is a British female vocalist and I got into her music in 1999 when she released her debut album "No Angel". Around this time, I had been getting into female vocalists and was keeping my eyes open for new acts. Dido's first CD was in a listening station at my favorite CD store. I listened... I liked... I bought. The CD was one of my favorites before anyone really knew who she was. I was certainly into her stuff before Marshall Mathers (a.k.a. Eminem) mixed her song Thank You into one of his raps. I later found out that she was also kinda cute... actually... really cute. Bonus!

Anyway, she released a second album called Life For Rent... but I never bought it. Why? Well the first single from it, White Flag, was in heavy rotation on the FM station that plays all day at work. I just reached my saturation point... got Dido-ed out I guess. Some of the other songs that were released from the album just did not seem up to snuff compared to the songs on the first album. All the melodies seemed very similar to me. Still... I could listen to No Angel any time and was never sick of it. Still a Dido fan.


Life For Rent promo image

It's been a long time since I've listened to her so I decided to pick up her live DVD. I had seen it at Borders while shopping for Christmas of 05. During the 2005 shopping... er... Holiday Season, I continually found myself repeating this mantra: You are supposed to be buying things for other people, not yourself. That kept me in check. 2 months later, I own the DVD.

So how was it? Pretty good. She has some really great musicians working with her. The music was really great and the sound was mixed well. The video editing was smooth and not jarring. She talked in between some of the songs, but was not long winded or annoying. Actually, it was kind of cute. At one point, shee seemed to get emotional as the audience was singing along with her during an acapella closing to a song. She just backed away from the microphone with a huge grin and let them finish it.

Unfortunately, I didn't care for some of the arrangements of the songs. The band went into unecessary jam sessions in the middle of some songs. On a few songs, she never even made it to the chorus because of this. In my opinion, she could have hired one less percussionist and added a backup singer. Dido sings her own harmonies on her albums and those vocal parts were not present in her live act. The songs were missing something without backing vocals. She handled the vocals in the song Here With Me a little strangely as well. There were also some parts where the audio did not sync up with the video... as if this was filmed on multiple nights and they mixed and matched the best shots with the best sound.

Sorry for all the negativity in the previous paragraph. I actually liked the DVD! Go get it... really. Maybe I am being a little tough on her because I know she is better than what was captured on DVD... but what do I know?


Ummm... cute