Tonight, I had a peek at the All Cast Special Live DVD of a-nation
I wrote about earlier, and while it's still a great DVD, there are some things that irk me.
For starters; the starting acts (acts at the beginning of the festival) got only one track on this DVD, including Do As Infinity and the very fine performing hitomi. Quite a shame to compress them into 6 tracks.
Moving on to the larger acts, favourites Ai Ootsuka, Every Little Thing and TRF are blessing this disc with two tracks, along with boy band Toho, but due to this, we are missing out on the fun performance of Ai Ootsuka's "Smiley" together with the audience.
Fortunately, ELT's "Dear My Friend" is there in all its glory, but they did more songs.
They make up for 8 tracks on the DVD
Koda Kumi has been granted 3 tracks, thus excluding her cover of Shocking Blue's "Venus". Must be a copyright thing.
The acts described earlier are vouching for 17 tracks all together. Now, the DVD has 25, which means that the entire 8 track act of Ayumi Hamasaki made it to the DVD, including the reprise of "A Song for XX", "Hanabi" and "Boys & Girls" on the trip through the audience.
Now don't get me wrong; Ayu's music is nice to listen to, I can't deny that she's one hell of an artist and her performance in the pouring rain is stunning.
But I'd rather see more of the entire festival instead of snippets from a few artists and a mini concert off of Avex' diva.
Still, the DVD is good enough to be played many times, bringing back a few of the fond memories I have of the holiday in August 2008. It also holds the special acts outside the main event; check out Alan when you have time.
Cheers, K.