Band: Jorn
Album title : Live In America
Label : Frontiers
Distributor : Rough Trade
Release date : 23/01/2009
Release : DVD

A year and a half ago (street date 21/09/2007 to be quite exact), Frontiers Records treated Jorn fans with a 2-disc live album, recorded one year earlier, on September 17 at the PowerProg VII Festival at Earthlink in Atlanta, Georgia...Jorn’s very first gig in the US. In addition to the live material, you also got three bonus studio tracks (for more details, check out said review, posted 23/09/2007).

As it now turns out, there were also a couple of cameras about that evening, recording the visual events for posterity…and this DVD! As opposed to having to imagine the going-ons with an audio recording, the visual footage sure has the added advantage that the fan is now able to actually séé what was happening on the stage, see the antics of both drummer Stian Kristofferson and guitarist Jörn Viggo Lofstad (and nót Tore Moren as I’d wrongly noted in the above mentioned review of the CD album) during their respective solos. What I can tell you now, is that the instrumental “Devilbird” was written by second guitarist Tore Moren, and besides the fact that he was only sparingly accompanied with atmospheric keyboards (courtesy of keyboardist Lasse Finbraten), you might call the track hís “solo”.

I wouldn’t say the footage is of excellent quality, even if the focus is cleancut and sharp at all times! The thing is, at least one (maybe even two) of the…5 or 6 cameras used were recording their stuff in black & white, ànd actually used in the mix!!! The occurance of thàt footage is somewhat disturbing to say the least! For one thing, it completely fucks up the beautiful lightshow, doesn’t it? Maybe that is a personal assessment, and sóme other viewers may look at that detail differently!

When push comes to shove, the people who’re gonna buy this DVD will most  probably be real Jorn fans…and those may not care about such “beauty details”…though they might feel differently when getting the thing as a present, for instance! Well, as this is a DVD, and since it’s our policy not to rate such releases, that at least is a task not demanded of me!

Tony.