Styx: Caught In The Act Live (1984)

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the overlap area between being a rock fan and being an opera fan. DVDs like this make me glad I'm both."Rock operas" aren't thin on the ground by any means, but with one exception these attempts uniformly fall short. Rock is generally focused on the instruments, often lead guitar and drums. The job of singing is all too often left to the one member of the band who sounds least bad, or else it's shared around democratically like an unfortunate chore. At best, voices are often considered a "chick thing" or else somewhat cheap and commercial.Because of this, the rock opera is often a contradiction, since an opera isn't quite a "play in music" despite its initial characterization as such in Peri and Monteverdi's day. Opera is a play in voice -- not just a musical story but specifically a sung one. The voice must be at the heart of the music, and few rock bands have made the musical choice to put a voice at their centers, with limited exceptions.One of those exceptions was the popular rock band Styx during the 1970s and 1980s, which boasted not only excellent songwriters and musicians, but a lead singer with a strong, high voice and charisma, and a very strong bent toward glitzy theater. Taken together with a healthy dose of melodrama, these qualities resulted in (in my humble opinion) the only rock opera to truly achieve operatic status, "Kilroy Was Here." It's not a perfect work by any means -- any more than Peri's "Euridice" was in 1600. And lead singer Dennis DeYoung's voice, while excellent for rock, does not approach either the hall-filling power and icy purity of Freddie Mercury nor the baritone-like belt and near-obsessive refusal to go off the center of the note of Steve Perry.It is, however, a clear third in the triumvirate of Rock Altinos, the old-school countertenors using the pre-Alfred Deller definition of men who sing in the alto register in a full and natural chest voice (or nearly in DeYoung's case, more of a half-and-half along the lines of Art Garfunkel than a true natural male alto). A pretty, clean instrument with good penetration and ring, DeYoung's voice and his love of the concept album (the spiritual inheritor of Baroque opera) goes a long way to making "Kilroy" succeed where most other rock operas have failed to make a dent.For many people my age, the story of Kilroy is one the broad strokes of which we know already: rock singer Robert Kilroy (full name: Robert Orin Charles Kilroy, or R.O.C.K. of course) was framed for murder and put in jail by a totalitarian government determined to do away with rock music. At the time, this was a more immediate concern for many bands during the heyday of evangelical types insisting that they had found backward satanic messages inserted in the songs of most popular bands. The inoffensive Styx was among the top targets for this sort of accusation.A young rebel named Jonathan Chance (lead guitarist Tommy Shaw) intercepts coded messages from Kilroy after the latter escapes from jail, and the two meet at the eponymous Paradise Theater where Kilroy recounts the tragic tale to Chance. Midway through the story, the scene shifts to a live performance, and the band whose history we are following becomes simply Styx in concert.The conclusion, with Kilroy bequeathing a guitar to Chance and a reprise of the well-known "Mr. Roboto," is played out before the concert audience itself, which has become part of the story.The general plot is as loose and campy as any during the heyday of Baroque opera, and the artifice fades away completely during the concert, reasserting itself periodically. The musicianship is excellent, and even though Shaw who was not pleased with the theatrical direction that the band had taken, all the band members throw themselves enthusiastically into their assigned parts, with the brothers Panozzo playing both prisoners and brownshirted thugs and guitarist James Young as the face of censorship, the dictator Dr. Righteous.Just as in the heyday of Baroque opera though, the vocal soloist is at center stage for most of the story (although he does not dominate the concert unduly). It's this that makes "Kilroy Was Here" most like the operas that it takes after. Again, DeYoung's is not a trained voice in an operatic sense, but it's a clear, pretty instrument with respectable power and the range necessary to turn heads. And it's not every day -- certainly not in the world of opera! -- where the owner of a respectable voice is also a gifted composer with an innate sense of storytelling.The music consists of the hits that most people today recognize from the album itself plus several from previous albums such as the infectious "Too Much Time on My Hands" and "Snowblind," an anti-drug anthem that was ironically one of the songs said to contain masked nefarious backwards messages. (DeYoung replied to the accusation with the acerbic comment that the band already had its hands full making the music sound right forwards.)The entire short film, taken from what is obviously an old analog source sadly and thus with all the image quality of an old VHS tape, can be found along with the concert that it leads into on the DVD, together with many promotional videos for older songs by the band before the days when such things were called "music videos" and made to be widely broadcast. The entire package is a great look into the high water mark of an excellent rock band as well as a tantalizing peek into what the world of opera might truly have felt like two and a half centuries ago to audiences in the pit and pigeon loft at the Teatro di San Carlo on Carnival night. Kilroy's entrance and dramatic reveal would have been the envy of Marchesi and Caffarelli, and every librettist in Italy would have been rushing home to their quills and paper to pen stories of mechanical men and martyred musicians in a world where the government exerted infinitely more control over artistic expression than any rock band could ever have imagined.

Very well produced with some of favorite Styx music

STYX would never be the same again, for better and for worse. The album and subsequent tour for KILROY WAS HERE destroyed the band and forever the individual players would never find that magic again. Truly, STYX, had seen their BEST OF TIMES.This live release is both a testament to the immense talent of the band and a novella of the ruination of everything that was good about Tommy, Dennis, Chuck, John and James. While Tommy has since gone on to much acclaim and varied success, Dennis has forever left classic/ art rock behind in favor of pop and show tunes. J.Y. and the rest of the band waited for the band to reunite and once again live the carnival ride that was STYX in the late 1970's.While the band did reunite for immensely successful (and musically brilliant) tours in 1996 and 1997, by the end of 1996 the same chasms ensued and ultimately ended once and for all any hjope of bringing back such wonderful artistic collective.Bringing fans back to CAUGHT IN THE ACT: LIVE.If one listens closely, the despair and sorrow of a desintegrated band can be heard. While the band gave the music every ounce of energy it had within, the individual tanks were relatively low on fuel.With that being said, the music is often amazing. However, the stage setting and the role-playing of parts is laborious, bordering on insulting. Furthermore, some songs from the accompanying album release are omitted from the video release while others (more closely following the loose theme of KILROY WAS HERE) are available on the DVD.One can only hope that among the bonus material for CAUGHT IN THE ACT: LIVE - DVD will be the installment of classic songs such as CRYSTAL BALL, while ommitting none of the original release tracks.If CRYSTAL BALL and others are added to this final video release, then my rating would be an unequivocal 5 stars, but without such (and with the silliness of the KILROY WAS HERE stage production) I am left giving this only 4 stars based solely on the merits of the musicianship of this once majestic quintet.For my money, while this is truly a remarkable archive of all that was once good and once bad with the band known as STYX, I would rather recommend both RETURN TO PARADISE and ONE WITH EVERYTHING as vastly superior concert performances.I, for one, can wait with nothing short of anxiety for CAUGHT IN THE ACT:LIVE to finally arrive at my doorstep and make its way into my DVD plauyer.STYX, truly one of the most amazing bands in the annuls of rock and roll.

何年来も Styx の PV を集めていて, ここに辿り着きました. 同時期に活躍していた Journey, TOTO, Foreigner などと比べ Styx は何故かマイナーな存在で, スカパーの音楽番組でのオンエア率も低い. 昔ビデオカセットで録画した Babe などは Youtube で見かけるのみ... やっと(そこそこ)まともな映像が入手できました.そんな私にとっては DVD 本編のライヴ 14 曲はオマケみたいなもので, ボーナス素材と扱われている後半 12 曲がお宝です. 今までに見たことのないクリップもいくつか! 映像はいかにも昔の VTR 素材を DVD 化したもので, それなりの画質ですが, 音は Good. 時間は 54 分弱. 価格も CD 一枚より安いぐらいなので, Styx のベスト盤として往年のファンにお勧めです.P.S. 本編のライヴ 1 時間 28 分弱も楽しめますよ.

安い値段で売られているPV集のDVDは収録曲が中途半端だったのですが、これは日本でブレイクしだしたBorrowed Timeや髭を剃った日本公演後に収録されたと思われるBabeなどのPVも入っていて嬉しいです。　PVでひとつ発見したのが、デフォルトの音声はオリジナルのモノラルですが、第２音声にステレオのいい音が収録されています。　Kilroy Was Hereに関しては、私の持っているバージョンは編集がちょっと違います。当時テレビ神奈川が放映したものですが、ストーリーにライブが都度差し込まれているもので、ライブだけみたい人にはいやな編集ですが、Kilroy Was Hereのストーリー展開に合わせた順序になっておりMr. Robotoはクライマックスに入っています。これはこれでとても気に入っており、オーディエンスの反応からも、そもそもKilroy Was Hereのために特別に開催したライブではないかなと思います。いつか、この編集バージョンも発売して欲しいです。

日本ではどんどんマイナー化されていくSTYXファンですので、このような昔のDVDがかなりやすくリージョン・フリーということで飛びついて買いました。内容は二つに分かれます。メインはコート・イン・ザ・アクトのツアーのものです。STYXは日本ではパラダイス・シアターの時に武道館に来ました（ツアーの最終公演でここでデニス・デ・ヤングが長い間はやしていた髭をそりました）。この「Caught in the Act」では日本には来ていないので貴重です。しかしツアーの内容はひどいものです。かなりお金をかけたKilroyの映画から始まるのですが、まるで学芸会のようなのりで始まります。途中は普通のLIVEになり盛り上がるのですが、最後はまた学芸会で終わります。ここからトミー・ショウ脱退そしてSTYX崩壊になっていくのですが、このツアーを見る限り、それも致し方ないのかなという内容です。しかしマニアのファンには一見価値はあると思います（逆にコアでない方は復活後のDVDのほうが絶対に良いです。）もうひとつはボーナスとして”Come Sail Away"を含むシングルのプロモーション用のビデオが多数収録されています。これも貴重な映像だと思います。最後に画質ですが、これは昔のものとはいえかなり酷いです。同じように昔のジャーニーのDVDも持っていますが、こちらは古くても画質がまともなのに、このDVDは画質も悪いです。良くも悪くもSTYXのマニア向けDVDです。

このライブ映像は、１９８３年に、そっくりそのままNHKで放送されていて、当時の一般家庭ではモノラルのビデオしか無いからそれに録画して何度も観ていた（Styxのライヴ映像なんて手元にはそれしか無いから）私にとっては非常に懐かしく、更に、そんな青春の思い出の映像が５.1chのサラウンドで観られるというだけで、もう涙ものです。そんな同じ思い出の有る方！買いです。

リージョンフリーでした。過去にビデオで発売されたライヴ映像に１２曲のＰＶを追加収録してＤＶＤにしたものです。音声はDolby2.0と5.1です。