Review of An Evening with Dionne Warwick

Introduction

The names Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach are so often to be mentioned in the same breath. The lady herself acknowledges that without the songwriting skills of Bacharach and his lyricist Hal David, she would not have a career. However, the sleeve notes for this disc makes out it was a two-way street and she made the songs famous.

Certainly Ms Warwick is a pop diva of the `sixties and her partnership with Bacharach and David stamped a style on a whole era of music. Personally, I rate Ms Warwick as a diva, but not because of her incredible performances. I think she`s a diva because of her attitude to certain rival performers (specifically our Cilla Black, who made the songs "Alfie" and "Anyone Who Had A Heart" her own, yet Ms Warwick considers them inferior `covers`). Listen to her murder "Alfie" specifically, then compare it with Cilla`s original recording for the movie and see who gets blown away.

The disc opens with a computer graphic fly-though a gallery before alighting on a book which opens to present a menu. Startlingly on the accompanying audio (Ms Warwick singing Say A Little Prayer), there is an enormous thunderclap. This evening with Dionne Warwick was during the 2003 Syracuse Jazz Festival, and it was piddling with rain. If I`d paid for tickets to this performance, I`d feel the weather matched my mood because value for money isn`t a phrase I`d readily use. I have to say one of my pet hates is performers messing around with the arrangement of a tune they`re famous for. This entire performance is full of such re-arrangements. Ms Warwick takes to the stage in a tracksuit and blags her way through seventeen numbers with an I-could-sing-the-phone-book-and-these-idiots-would-clap air.

It`s a very disappointing performance, because I know she can set the stage alight when she wants to - most of her recordings of Bacharach songs ARE the definitive performances. I`d hope she would feel that this particular evening with Dionne Warwick isn`t a typical one.

Video

Shot on 4:3 video on a frightful evening by a multiple camera set-up, what you get is a straight video recording of a performance.

Audio

The sound defaults to a plain vanilla Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo, but you can switch to the much wider Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround soundstage. This puts you squarely in the audience without getting soaked to the skin.

Features

No subtitles. There`s a gallery of nasty little thumbnail pictures you can`t view any closer. "Backstage Stuff" simply runs the pre-concert preamble from the start of the concert footage. There`s a text biography, a thumbnail gallery of album covers "discography" with no details, a twenty-two minute interview with Ms Warwick, a link to www.dionnewarwickfanclub.com, a written message onscreen from her and DVD credits from the end of the show.

Conclusion

You`d have to be a genuine fan to really enjoy this disc. There`s just an air over the whole enterprise that leaves you feeling a bit flat. It`s a performer just blagging their way through an evening`s performance rather than having fun themselves. You can tell from the way she plays with the lyrics that she`s bored stupid singing these songs. Pity.