The Red Hot Tour - video review

DavidM · Post by **DavidM** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:38 pm

As some of you might know, I recently acquired this video on ebay and I can finally tell you my impressions of it.

The first thing I noticed was how different the style of the production was in comparison to the live show I saw a year ago. Vanessa-Mae herself was a lot more active and energetic on stage in 1995. And the whole things feels more like a... how can I put this... like a "production" than the 2004 show, which felt more focused on the music. One major indicator of this is the completely unnecessary dancers. I'm sure they were very good dancers but I just found them annoying and distracting. I wanted to shout at the screen, she doesn't need dancers, she's not Britney Spears!

In fact, I wonder if this was due to outside influences trying to push her to be a pop star, and the Vanessa-Mae I saw is more like her real self, mature and confident enough to present her music without trying to live up to an image. Maybe I'm completely wrong... but I am very glad I saw the Royal Festival Hall show without seeing this video first, as I think I saw a better concert.

Well, so far I've sounded a bit negative. But really, apart from the distractions, the music in this concert is wonderful.

For the electric part of the show, most of the music comes from The Violin Player and the live arrangements all sound great. Her playing is perfect, and running about and dancing doesn't detract from that.

I am also very impressed with how confident she appeared throughout, not just in her playing (that is expected), but in her speech and interaction with the audience. I think she must have been 16 at the time but she acts like a mature professional throughout the show.

I think my favourite moment, though, is when she suddenly gets "serious" for the classical middle part of the show (it's a funny moment when she says she can't play classical music in a short dress, and an assistant wraps a long black skirt around her). Standing still, concentrating totally, lost in the music... this is how I remember her in concert and she suddenly seems more like "my" Vanessa-Mae.

Just the Shostakovitch piece (which I have never heard before) made this video worth the money.

And in the encore she plays the riff from a piece of music which I have seen my favourite rock band play live almost 30 times - Smoke on the Water

So I'm very glad I bought this video

And even when only 16, she's still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen on stage

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Xanthippe · Post by **Xanthippe** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:58 pm

Hey David, thanks for your review.

Yes, Vanessa-Mae was only 16 at the time of that concert in the Royal Albert Hall.

In my review of the Dresden concert of last week, I also wrote that Vanessa-Mae is today much more reserved on stage. Of course, The Red Hot Tour differs greatly from the choreography Tour in the fact that it is a pop tour and the prsent tour is more classical in nature.

Nevertheless, Vanessa-Mae in 1995-1999 was a happy bunny who simply liked everything she did, as a child so to speak. But after years of hard work virtually without real holidays, came the exhaustion of a focssed and diciplined childhood and life. Moreover, she became an adult, felt in love and wanted to get away under the influence of her mother. She restructured her live and career in taking up her own management and lives togehter now with Lionel for mare than 5 years already.

Vanessa-Mae re-gained the pleasure in live and making music she needs to be creative. She is very balanced in live and mood now, I think!

Vanessa-Mae now is a self-confident and happy young women who is very reserved in publicity and expression. Basically, Vanessa-Mae has always been a very shy and introvert person who had a very protected life as a child. Her career achivements costs her the usual contacts with people of her own age form the time she was 10.

I consider it very extraordinary that Vanessa-Mae has developed in such a balanced person, where she could easily have taken of with drugs and alcohol or swaloow in complte burn-out.

I really respect her very much for all she has achieved and for who she is today.

Xanthippe · Post by **Xanthippe** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:03 pm

BTW David,

You are absolutely right! The Shostakovich part is great. Well played and her concentration is deeply impressing. I sure hope she will record this music in the future.

brianlim · Post by **brianlim** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 4:17 am

Yes. She is the most beautiful violinist and women ever. I can't agree with you anymore. I wish I get to meet a girl like her when I am old enough to get married. Anyway, the concert was great. I watch it almost everyday. And yes, the 4th Movement is one of the best song composed and Vanessa Mae does a great job performing the song.