Dual Disc Ian Gillan - Gillan’s Inn

[El Guapo]

Hi there!

I just came across this announcement (although I'm sure many of you will already know):

Announcement from Essential Music & Marketing:

On April 17th the brand new album from Ian Gillan, Gillan’s Inn, is released. Available exclusively on DualDisc this is a dream collection for fans of Gillan.

With the release of Gillan’s Inn, Ian Gillan celebrates an unprecedented career as the quintessential voice of heavy metal. The new album serves as a dynamic retrospective of Ian’s solo repertoire, in addition to his work as the lead singer for Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. However, this is not a collection of previous recordings, but rather, fresh takes on some of the most memorable songs of the heavy metal genre

Gillan enlisted the help of his friends to ensure that the recordings reached their full potential. What resulted amounts to a hard rock summit of epic proportions. Gillan’s Inn features performances by Joe Satriani, Steve Morse, Jeff Healy, Tony Iommi, Uli Jon Roth, John Rzeznick, Michael Lee, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Jon Lord and others

This title utilises the DualDisc format to its fullest potential, offering the fans some amazing special features on the DVD side, including the complete album in 5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo; the option to choose who plays the solo on Smoke On The Water from a list including Jeff Healy, Joe Satriani, Tony Iommi and more; and an optional track-by-track commentary from Ian

FULL TRACKLISTING

CD Side:
01. Unchain Your Brain – Feat. Joe Satriani (guitar), Michael Lee (drums)
02. Bluesy Blue Sea – Feat. Janick Gers (guitar), Michael Lee (drums)
03. A Day Late And A Dollar Short –Feat. Uli Jon Roth (guitar), Ronnie James Dio (vocals)
04. Hang Me Out To Dry – Feat. Joe Satriani (guitar), Michael Lee (drums)
05. Men Of War – Feat. Steve Morse (guitar), John Rzeznik (guitar)
06. When A Blind Man Cries – Feat. Jeff Healy (guitar), Jon Lord (organ)
07. Sugar Plum – Feat. Roger Glover (bass), Ian Paice (drums)
08. Trashed - Feat. (Tony Iommi (guitar), Roger Glover (bass), Ian Paice (drums)
09. No Worries - Feat. Michael Lee Jackson
10. Smoke On The Water – Feat. Steve Morse (guitar), John Rzeznik (guitar)., Jon Lord (organ), Ian Paice (drums)
11. No Laughing In Heaven – Feat. Roger Glover (bass), Ian Paice (drums)
12. Speed King – Feat. Joe Satriani (guitar), Michael Lee (drums)
13. Loving On Borrowed Time – Feat. Steve Morse (guitar), Uli Jon Roth (guitar)
14. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight – Feat. Joe Elliott (vocals)

DVD Side:
Complete album in 5.1 surround sound
“Making Of Gillan’s Inn “video
Track by track audio commentary by Ian Gillan
Special “Select the Soloist for Smoke On the Water” section (choose from Jeff Healy, Joe Satriani, Steve Morse, Tony Iommi, Uli Jon Roth and more)
Rare performance videos of Ian fronting Deep Purple and Black Sabbath
Demon’s Eye – DVD side only – Feat. Jeff Healy (guitar), Jon Lord (organ)
Special DVD Rom bonus track – Can I Get A Witness?
Photo Gallery
Lyrics

Ian Gillan was the original Jesus Christ Superstar, and co-wrote Smoke on the Water (one of the most popular songs of all time) among dozens of other hits. He has played to tens of millions of fans and sold over one hundred million records. He is the voice of rock and roll, and has inspired generations of singers. Pavarotti said he is a genius and David Gilmour said ‘as long as Gillan is singing, rock and roll is not dead’.

There is no mention of the available audio formats for the multichannel mix on the DVD side. Although I always hope for HiRez, I put this posting here in the non-HiRez DualDisc section. I wrote them a mail asking about the format, I will let you know if and when I get an answer.

Or maybe one of you already knows?

Best regards,
Oliver

 

[El Guapo]

Hrmpf!
The email address they gave on their web site just bounced (it said something like invalid address)
So I guess we'll have to find out the hard way. Anyway, I could not restrain myself, and since play.com has it on pre-order for 9 quid, I just went ahead and ordered it...
Best regards,
Oliver

 

[BananaSlug]

Sounds interesting, especially the 'choose your guitar solo' bit. Let us know if it's interesting 'good' or interesting 'interesting.'

 

[El Guapo]

Let us know if it's interesting 'good' or interesting 'interesting.'

Sure thing! I'll post my impressions when I get the disc...
Best regards,
Oliver

 

[El Guapo]

Hi there!

I found my copy in the mail this morning and quickly popped it in:
unfortunately, the DVD side only has DD5.1 and DD2.0; no DTS, no HiRez
I didn't have time to listen to it as I had to go to work, but the two minutes it was in the player, I was not really thrilled about it. It seemed kind of flat and void of details... (but maybe it was just the disappointment about it only being DD...)

I don't know if I will have time tonight to listen to it entirely, because there was also a whole stack of other discs in the mail (among them two Depeche Mode and two Moody Blues), and I'm not sure it the Gillan disc is really the one I want to listen to first...

Best regards,
Oliver

 

[El Guapo]

Hi again!

I had a quick listen through the multichannel track of this disc last night after all, and sadly I have to say that I am not impressed!

I'm afraid that I don't have the technical expertise like some of you guys (like Neil or Felix) to really judge the quality of this disc, so I can just give you an overall account of my subjective impressions when I listened to this.

I had the feeling that the dynamics - especially on the vocals - were pretty much compressed, and that mostly there was not much detail (as if you only see the forest, but cannot make out the individual trees if this analogy makes any sense...)

Also, the mix sounded pretty uninspiring to me on most tracks. There were two or three tracks where the mix sounded more discrete and seemed to come alive more, but overall the Dolby Digital 5.1 track was disappointing for me.

Musically, I can't really comment as much; I have never been a big Deep Purple fan and except for "Smoke On The Water" didn't know that many of the original recordings.

I'll have to check out the CD side, maybe I'm just too spoiled by now with HiRez music that the DD track seems so flat to me (but I doubt that: I have heard much better DD mixes on other discs and in movie soundtracks than this...)

So where does this leave us? If you're a fan of Ian Gillan then you'll probably want to have this disc anyway and since this is only available as DualDisc you have no choice anyway. If not, you won't find any revelations here; don't buy it for the surround mix, you'll end up disappointed.

Best regards,
Oliver

 

[splinter7]

Horrible Sounding Mix!
It sounds unbalanced. The center channel is so muddy.
Stay Far Away!

 

[Big Stevie]

the mix really is not very impressive but it still should be applauded for trying to get the most out out of the medium - with all the choose your guitar solo etc bonu stuff.