The Movie: This is a very special DVD to me, not only because it was one of the first ones I ever owned, but also because Sting: The Brand New Day Tour Live From the Universal Amphitheatre was taped at a live concert in Los Angeles on October 30, 1999 -- a concert that yours truly just happened to be at!

Sting, as you should very well know if you've been paying attention to my personal site all these years, is my absolute favorite music artist of all time. I think he is an incredibly talented songwriter and performer.

This concert was near the beginning of Sting's Brand New Day tour, which ended up stretching to damn near 2 years long, and I managed to make it to two concerts on this tour, this one in Los Angeles, and then again 8 months later in Las Vegas... I don't know if it was just for the DVD, but he definitely pulled out all the stops for this performance!

I won't lie to you and say that this DVD is as good as being there... but I think it does a much better job of capturing the pure electricity of his performances than ...All This Time, a DVD recorded in his backyard in Italy at the tail end of this same tour. The set list was comprised of some new stuff and some old stuff, and included:

• A Thousand Years
• If You Love Somebody (Set Them Free)
• After the Rain Has Fallen
• We'll Be Together
• Perfect Love... Gone Wrong
• Seven Days
• Fill Her Up
• Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
• Ghost Story
• Moon Over Bourbon Street
• Englishman In New York
• Brand New Day
• Tomorrow We'll See
• Desert Rose
• Every Breath You Take
• Lithium Sunset
• Message In A Bottle
• Fragile

The best performances from this concert I think were "Every Breath You Take", "Fragile", and "Message in a Bottle" (all three of which were part of either the first or second encore at the concert), especially "Message in a Bottle" where you can truly sense the very personal connection that Sting held with the audience (which I very fortunately got to experience first hand!), even if he did forget to do the second verse. And I'll never forget how Stevie Wonder randomly popped out during the performance of the song "Brand New Day" to perform the harmonica solo! I'm glad I have this DVD because I couldn't even hear the solo at the actual concert because everyone was cheering so loud! Another high point of this performance was "Desert Rose", where Cheb Mami and his buddies also came out to perform. And might I add that his backup singers are total hotties! They weren't there in Vegas when I saw him again on this tour... and of course, there was my personal favorite Sting song of all time: "Seven Days".

Low points: While "Ghost Story" is a great song on his album, it just didn't work live. And how could they not include Roxanne on this DVD!?!? I know he performed it, because I was there!! Why wouldn't you want it on the DVD!? I'll never understand that, I guess.

But overall, I'd say this was a pretty damn fine concert!

The DVD: Although I would have preferred to see this DVD presented in a widescreen format, the standard 4:3 video is quite spectacular. As near as I can tell, this DVD was shot on video, and the image is incredibly sharp, with amazingly vibrant colors, especially for being shot on video! Although there is a bit of pixellation in some fine lines, and some gradient stepping in the compression, I'd still rate this video transfer as quite excellent, capturing the essence of the great stage lighting (hey, I know, I was there!)

The 5.1 audio mix is just shimmering with Stingy goodness, and although I can't say it was just like being there in person, it's pretty damned good. And as far as special features go, there is some backstage footage, that has been previously seen when DirecTV broadcast this concert on their satellite network... but I don't know what else you could really have in the way of special features for a live concert, so I guess it's good enough.