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Solo outing from Queensryche vocalist...
GEOFF TATE Geoff Tate (Silverline DVD-A) (2003)
There are many reasons why I consider myself lucky to be a Queensryche fan. The main
reason is the band's vocalist - Geoff Tate. He is without any doubt one of
the best vocalists in Rock Music, the second best after Freddie Mercury as
far as I'm concerned!
But what makes a really good musician and more
specifically, why is Geoff far better than any other frontman of our
beloved music? A musician is the person who successfully manages to
transform his feelings to music - this is more of a gift rather than
anything else and when God decided to grant Geoff with that gift, he was
really generous! Geoff has been a performer for the last twenty years, and
we all know that it takes a lot of commitment and devotion in order to
achieve such a thing - twenty years of constantly pushing your creativity
to the very limit, trying to present fresh ideas to your audience.
Twenty years of personal sacrifices with actual success hitting your door only
for a short period of time (Operation Mindcrime / Empire), even though you
deserved so much more... One thing that you can tell about Geoff Tate (and
Queensryche in general) is that he hates repeating himself. Well, believe
it or not, Geoff decided to make an album of his own - totally out of
Queensryche's influence - so as to present something totally new to his
audience.
He recruited musicians who had little to do with rock music
(more Latin and jazz influenced) and made this wonderful album simply
called...Geoff Tate! I was really happy to see that instead of receiving a
normal CD I received a DVD Audio.
What's so different about it? First of all it has a 5.1 surround sound! Then you have many extras such as the
video "On the road, off the TV", a small documentary where "His Majesty"
explains what was the idea behind a solo album, the criteria he used in
order to find the proper musicians etc. You will also enjoy a photo
gallery, the band's bios and the lyrics of the album. It was also nice to
see that, this time, Silverline decided to give you the option of having
the lyrics of the song you chose to listen to on screen - something that
was missing from Queensryche's "Tribe" DVD audio.
As far as music is concerned...this is another brilliant album! The involvement of all those
great musicians (Jeff Carrell/Guitar, Howard Chilcott/all Synths, Evan
Schiller/Riff Guitar/Drums and Chris Fox/Electric Bass), did bring a
breath of fresh air to Geoff's ideas so I think that the experiment was
successful. There are eleven brilliant songs in this album but since you
always have to choose at least two songs as your favourites, I would say
(with great difficulty) that "Helpless" and "In Other Words" are the ones.
Geoff once more performed miracles lyrics wise.
He reminds me of the great Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis - one of his words could create a thousand
images and the same applies to Tate's lyrics! If I could live a thousand lives
I would spend them all listening to the music of this living legend, and
Geoff - if you are listening out there...please don't you ever stop
bringing tears to my eyes and shivers to my body with your music... if you do it
will definitely kill me!
Website
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Review by John Stefanis
© 2003 All rights reserved.
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