Classic Rock Productions, a label that specializes in the audio and video restoration of classic rock concerts (from the legends of the Rock n’ Roll) for DVD presentation. Classic Rock Productions has carved quite a niche for itself, as music fans of all ages have been clamoring to catch vintage rock performances with completely re-mastered better-than-CD surround sound in the privacy of their living rooms. Classic Rock Productions has recently launched a new series of cutting edge digital documentaries focusing on the history of Rock N Rolls biggest icons. The label promises such DVDs on Pink Floyd, The Who, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and many more. This review focuses on one of their debut releases in this special series, INSIDE THIN LIZZY.

INSIDE THIN LIZZY traces the roots, history, and constant line-up changes this Irish heavy rock band has gone through. Rock journalists Malcolm Dome, John Mckenzie, Michael Heatly, Les Davidson, and Rob Lorrich examine each album put out by the band and critique both the strengths and weaknesses of each record. They give insight into the formative years of THIN LIZZY, which they call the Eric Bell era, because of the influence of founder/lyricist/guitarist Eric Bell. Eventually, Bell left the band (which was a good thing because his guitar-playing abilities were limited), and frontman/bassist Phil Lynott became the creative driving musical force of THIN LIZZY. Phil Lynott came up with the idea of altering THIN LIZZY’s celtic/folk influences by adding two powerful guitarists, Brian Robertson (who replaced Fast Eddie Clark in MOTORHEAD) and Scott Gorham. In their glory days, THIN LIZZY was a revolving door of guitar players including the likes of Snowy White, Gary Moore, John Sykes, and others. The journalists go into detail about the comings and goings of each musician. And of course, the documentary approach includes live concert footage of the band jamming out their hits and fan favorites like:

• Wild One
• Rosalie
• Suicide
• Emerald
• Boys Are Back In Town
• Don’t Believe a Word
• Johnny the Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed
• Bad Reputation
• Black Rose w/Gary Moore
• Angel of Death
• Cold Sweat
• The Sun Goes Down

Great line-up of songs, huh? Unfortunately, don’t get your hopes up on the performance footage though, because these live songs are incompletely played—Classic Rock Productions only plays a minute or two from each song—in my opinion, its kind of a waste to re-master all this excellent live footage in DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 and then not include the songs in their entirety. The documentary portion of this disc is top notch indeed, and Malcolm Dome and his fellow journalists provide more information than anyone could ask for—plus the enthusiasm they exude over THIN LIZZY is contagious. One major problem in the soundmix is that the journalists talk over the performance footage—so of course the tunes are "drowned out" so the viewer can hear the commentators. So the effect of the digital surround mix is pretty much wasted as far as the delivery of the music is concerned. Another setback in the format of INSIDE THIN LIZZY is the video presentation of the live footage. For some reason, when the band plays, Classic Rock Productions ‘tiles’ up the footage so the screen contains four camera views of the same scene, making it certainly hard to see the band doing their thing. In other areas, they ‘letterboxed’ all sides of the image making it difficult to see the action onstage.

INSIDE THIN LIZZY contains a variety of concert footage, and as one would imagine the quality varies by the source print. Classic Rock Productions has preserved theses images nicely, except for their annoying tendency to ‘tile’ or ‘letterbox’ the songs, resulting in significantly smaller viewing angle onscreen. From the Main Menu, you can select Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1, and DTS 5.1 surround sound. All 3 tracks offer spectacular, crystal clear fidelity with the DTS one having the most powerful range. Technically, the sound presentation is solid, with the only the audio problems mentioned above detracting from the overall audio presentation. INSIDE THIN LIZZY is also completely lacking in extras. The disc is Region 0 with subtitles for several continents so people around the globe can enjoy this DVD.

In summary, INSIDE THIN LIZZY is an exhaustive look at the history of the THIN LIZZY done by Rock’s best journalists. The well-edited documentary portion is a wealth of knowledge and certainly worth the price of the disc alone for THIN LIIZZY fans. But there are some problems with the structure of performance footage and the delivery of the stereo sound that should be addressed by the folks at Classic Rock Productions. Of course, I’m just a journalist/reviewer myself, so they won’t listen to me. But if you’d care to improve their product, just vote with your dollar bill, if you know what I mean.

 INSIDE THIN LIZZY is available from DVDEmpire.com