The Petra Zone

Well, just got back from the DVD taping, and it was quite a show. I will make this quick, as im sure others will review it too...

The Good: The show was fantastic, and although the guys have noticeably aged, Greg's stage presence has not missed a beat! He was jumping around like it was 1985. He was dressed very sharp. The music was loud and it rocked. Louie rocked out the Mickey Gear and even led us in a M-I-C-K-E-Y...L-O-U-I-E song.

The set list: They simply performed the 12 songs on the CD. No solos, no other classic songs, just the 12 songs. They performed 3 of the songs twice for DVD purposes. There was a period in one song where Louie's snare went out and they had to replace it. It was hilarious, and of course they performed the song again.

The "bad": Nothing about this show was "bad" in anyways, but the show was more of a SHOW than a concert for the simple fact that 60%-75% of what happened on stage was lip-synced/tracked. I sat 4 rows back (even shook Greg's hand during more power to ya!) and it was very obvious that 75% of what Greg was mouthing was lip synced. It kind of took that 'raw' concert feeling away from me. Also, I totally believe that on a few of the songs, Louie's drums were the only thing being played live.... Now I understand that this is a DVD companion taping and that they want it perfect, but I guess I just wish more of it was real in person. Even Bob was just playing guitar hero to a few of his solos, which was really disappointing to me.

That being said, it was a good time, it was free, and it was great to finally meet my musical heroes.

Classic Petra Rocks!

Hown was the meet and greet, Ross? What did they say?

i didnt really discuss anythign with them, just told greg he hasn't missed a beat. he replied "God's good man!"
went back and forth with john L. about how many people were lined up
asked bob to sign my beyond belief CD and he was like "what CD is this?!" i had to tell him twice it was beyond belief. for some reason he was a bit perplexed i had him sign that random CD haha.
Mark was very humble and actually gave a touching testimony during the show about how graverobber helped him through his moms passing last month (or it may have been his dad) He is a great man of God.

Cool! Mark has always been my favorite. I'm sorry to hear about his dad. His mom died back in '83, I think. I'll be praying for him. He must be so sad.

60%-75% of what happened on stage was lip-synced/tracked.

hmmm... probably due to budget or TBN, or both.

How would budget or TBN hold Greg back from actually singing these songs for real? They obviously wanted the DVD to be perfect so they did a very un-petra like thing and phoned it in. Not gripping too much, just a tad disappointed they didn't have faith in themselves to just do it raw...

I think it has to do with the taping, which they said it was--not a concert. Anyway, they're making a recording for TV and they only have one shot. Using recordings makes sure there are no mic problems or other sound problems. I've always heard that's how it's done for TV, but I'll be the first to admit I'm not expert.

Yeah, I agree with u there. Just hoping the tour itself will be real.

P.S.

The same goes for why they would move around from their mics like someone pointed out. Depending on the TBN, they may not be able to get correct camera shots if the guys left their marks. TV is all some and mirrors, right?

Oh yeah, by the way... during the meet and greet, they actually showed the finished product on a few high def flat screens and WOW its going to be a gorgeous DVD..... top notch. Puts farewell to shame imho

rossistheboss wrote:How would budget or TBN hold Greg back from actually singing these songs for real? They obviously wanted the DVD to be perfect so they did a very un-petra like thing and phoned it in. Not gripping too much, just a tad disappointed they didn't have faith in themselves to just do it raw...

There is a huge difference in budget based on things like live punching, or rolling on every camera and then going back to edit. Also, audio people are not the same as video people so if you are capturing the audio for the performance that would be more equipment and people to pay. If you are pretending to play to canned music then you don't have to worry about audio techs! For example, The Newsboys Go DVD was reshot in it's entirety in Houston because NB were not happy with the original video. The audio was fine. They went back to Houston several months later, with a different video company and a different venue and then proceeded to use the audio from the first show. Why? Well for one thing they liked the audio, and two they didn't have to hire another company to record the audio, there bye saving money. It was also pretty much punched live with very little post editing. Petra simply went prerecorded, probably because it costs a lot more money to do it the other way.

rossistheboss wrote:Oh yeah, by the way... during the meet and greet, they actually showed the finished product on a few high def flat screens and WOW its going to be a gorgeous DVD..... top notch. Puts farewell to shame imho

Not really saying much there...Farewell looked pretty last minute.

Not really saying much there...Farewell looked pretty last minute.

Farewell looks like it was recorded in a small place. Plus Jim Cooper wasn't the best for audio production, I know mastering goes a long way, but the Mastering engineer can only do so much if the mixing engineer didn't give him something good to work with.

I'm surprised that they just didn't bring the E brothers to do the Farewell album. That would have been a fitting ending. "We need Jesus" might have made the cut then. There should have been more songs on that, man it was not a good farewell album.

Looking forward to seeing this DVD

Farewell was recorded with the Yamaha digital console as a front end and those sound like crap. So, you get what you get.

Well, if it means anything, a friend of mine was there that wouldn't know if they were lip synching or not and she didn't mention it last night when she commented that the show was awesome on facebook, so it must have sounded great at least.