Eminem: Live From New York City

I like Eminem’s music.  I know I’m “too old” to be listening to Eminem, but I don’t buy that.  I listen to all kinds of music.  In fact my CD collection is about half as large as my DVD collection and it’s even more varied.  I have rap, hard rock, country, punk, reggae.  I have an entire CD of Elvis songs sung in Latin and a CD called Oink, which is a chant CD in pig latin.  I don’t discriminate when it comes to music. 

I purchased the first three Eminem CDs and enjoyed them.  Encore came out in a special edition and since I couldn’t find it, I ended up not getting it.  Then I didn’t pick up Curtain Call or Relapse since I had missed Encore.  That’s not to say I wouldn’t buy them if I ran across them at a yard sale or flea market or pawn shop, but I just can’t pay retail for them until I pick up Encore, preferably in the special edition.

The Live From New York City DVD was originally filmed as a live special for Showtime on December 3, 2005.  I never got around to watching it on Showtime, but I found the DVD at KV Fine Jewelry and Loan in St. Albans and added it to the collection.  Tuesday night I decided to pop it in.  The concert has a series of back stage skits that play out as well.  They all deal with Eminem getting ready to commit suicide by shooting himself.  Em’s music can be a little dark, but these bits just suck the fun out of the disc every time they come on.  As for the music, many of the songs are chopped down to a shortened version so that he can fit in as many songs as he can in the 79 minutes.  You might get one verse and the chorus and then he starts on the next song.  I found this disappointing, but what was even more disappointing is that instead of performing more of his greatest hits, at least a third of the show is performances by D12 and guest artists Obie Trice and Stat Quo.  That would be fine if they were opening for Eminem or if the show was billed as Eminem, D12 and other rappers, but it’s not.

One other thing that irritated me about the show was the way they went about trying to get the audience to sing.  I know it’s a staple of the live show to let the audience belt out a phrase or two here and there, but Eminem seems to do it on almost every song and multiple times in every song and most annoying of all, he would have the audience sing part of the sample tracks he uses as backing.  The drop out of the music so that the audience can sing Toy Soldiers for example is just jolting and incredibly distracting from the music.  Let the audience sing over the sample, turn the volume down slightly on the samples vocal track if you must, but don’t drop out everything for two lousy words.

I may have been the only person with these complaints as the camera at the event showed an audience having a great time.  One girl that they kept cutting to was so excited that she literally cried through the entire show.  Every time they showed her, she looked like she had just watched her entire family get slaughtered in front of her.

At 79 minutes, Eminem: Live From New York City is too long for me to rate on the Night Flight scale.  On the 4 star scale I’m afraid Eminem only gets 1 3/4 stars.  I wanted more of the songs, more of the hits, and less D12 and guests.