Birmingham, AL (05-Jun-05)

This is a nice document of the summer ballpark shows. The taper is WAY the hell away from the stage. He pulls back a couple times to show just how far away he is and it seems like he is a mile away (no heads though!). The zoom is pretty good although it is just too far away to catch any facial expressions or anything like that on the stage. The picture is pretty shaky for the first few songs and it gave me the feeling of being unsettled. It does then become quite steady and overall it is very watchable and enjoyable. There are shots of all the band members and you get a good picture of the entire stage. The audio is excellent although there is some crowd chatter during the slower/quieter songs.
Due to the extreme distance from the stage this is really a 3 star dvd. BUT, it does have 'I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine' which automatically adds an extra star! It is an excellent performace of a rare song.
Thanks to Chachi420 for making the necessary sacrifices to film this show and then upgrade the sound and share it with the world! Thanks to jman for getting it to me. So far this is the only summer ballpark dvd available other than Des Moines 04 and this one is far superior. This dvd certainly fits the 4 star definition of "good/worth to have".