Review of Ocean Colour Scene: Filmed From The Front Row

Introduction

I always thought that, perhaps even more so than the obvious choice of Oasis and the massive craze they sparked during the mid-nineties, the band to best epitomise ‘Britpop’ was Ocean Colour Scene. With their tuneful guitars and soulful lyrics, this Birmingham Quartet may sound like they just came out of the Sixties, but good music is still good music even when it’s 30 years old.

“Filmed from the Front Row” is Universal’s DVD version of a CD collection of OCS fans’ favourite videos and a compilation of some of their best live performances.

Video

As per usual with music videos the industry standard 4:3 aspect ratio is used on this disc, and in general the picture quality is very good. The videos are sharp and are generally clean, although in some of them there is visible grain. The live performances – most shot in Stirling Castle – are of even better quality: they are very sharp with black levels (shot at nighttime) strong. Sure, the picture quality is never as impressive as a feature film, but ‘Front Row’ is one of the best examples in the music DVD genre.

Audio

Given a choice of a stereo track and a DD 5.1 track, I was always going to go for the former, and boy it does not disappoint. The guitars and vocals are clear and retain all the emotion you’d imagine was there on the night; the bass is deep and smooth. The live performances make good use of the rears to give you the impression you really are at their gig. An excellent audio experience.

Features

Although music DVDs are not noted for their extras, the trend recently has been to start including some of the huge amounts of publicity work bands have to endure in order to promote their albums. The advertised feature on the back of the DVD case is a “40 minute interview”, but we also are given a photo gallery containing stills of the band. The interview is recorded in a radio studio, and goes into some depth with OCS: their beginnings, influences and their music in general are discussed. A little annoyingly however, every couple of minutes or so a black screen denoting the topic pops up on the screen: a method of editing interviews that I find extremely disruptive.

From the rather funkily retro menu you can either choose to watch the whole disc through, or you can choose to view only the videos or their live performances.

Conclusion

Though “Songs From the Front Row” does not contain enough songs to truly represent OCS’s history, it still provides a damn good mix of songs taken from right across their albums. Perhaps a little forgotten – at least until their next album comes out – OCS deserve to be remembered as one of the best of the mod-indie British bands in recent times. Outstanding tracks on this DVD come mostly from their Moseley Shoals and Marchin’ Already albums. The live performances of “The Riverboat Song”, “The Day We Caught the Train”, “Hundred Mile High City” and “Travellers Tune” all preserve the catchy riffs and distinctive vocals that sold them so many of those albums. The picture is very good, the sound quality is great, and we even get a long interview thrown in, making this a great DVD to own and pop in the player whenever you feel like listening to one of the defining sounds of the 90’s.