Following the sell out tour and triumphantly successful album `The Emancipation of Mimi’, Mariah Carey releases the highly anticipated tour DVD `The Adventures of Mimi’.
The tour, produced by Ken Ehrlich, played to packed houses across the States, Canada and Japan. Throughout the tour the multi-award winning star sang hits including her classics such as “Vision of Love and “Fantasy” and also songs from her latest album including “We Belong Together”, “It’s Like That” and “Say Something”. One of the highlights of the tour was when Mariah played a sell-out show in her hometown, New York, at Madison Square Gardens joined on stage by her friends Jay Z and P Diddy.
The DVD is released by Mercury Records on 19th November 2007.
Mariah is currently in the studio putting finishing touches to her latest album, yet untitled. Her signature fragrance, `M’ by Mariah Carey, is in stores now and her latest movie, `Tennessee’ from the makers of `Monster’s Ball’ will be released soon. Carey is also in production with Adam Sandler shooting yet another movie, “You Don’t mess with the Zohan”.
Watch this space…2008 will be another milestone in the career of this iconic star.
Disc One
1. Opening Video
2. “It’s Like That”
3. “Heartbreaker”
4. “Dream Lover”
5. “My All”
6. Shake It Off”
7. “Vision of Love”
8. “Fly Like a Bird”
9. “I’ll Be There”
10. “Fantasy”
11. “Don’t Forget About Us”
12. “Always Be My Baby”
13. “Honey”
14. “I Wish you Knew”
15. “Can’t Let You Go”
16. “One Sweet Day”
17. “Hero”
18. “Make It Happen”
19. “We Belong Together”
20. “Butterfly Reprise”
Disc Two
- An inside look at the tour and concert by Mariah and Mariah’s Personal Director
- 6 songs formatted for Karaoke sing-along
-`Lovers and Haters’ Short film by Spike Lee starring Mariah.
Source: I Love Music
The warbling diva certainly knows how to put on a stage show – and gets in and out of a whole range of skimpy outfits.
Unfortunately for her UK fans, she didn’t grace these shores on her latest jaunt.
But anyone who missed her 2007 concerts can check out the DVD Adventures of Mimi.
Source: The Sun | Text: Mariah Connection UK
It’s not secret we’ve all suffered from poor releases from Sony when it comes to Mariah Carey DVD’s. Universal have finally stepped up with not only a new offering but a genuinely good package with The Adventures Of Mimi Tour. Right from the word go, the presentation on the DVD is a class product. Your treated to a CGI rendition of the tour stage that lets you navigate the various different options.
Naturally, you’ll want to jump right in and go for the concert itself. Which features the ENTIRE concert. No edit verses, no cut songs – this is the full show as those thousands of fans experienced it. So that’s nineteen Mariah hits. The full setlist:
01. Opening video
02. It’s Like That
03. Heartbreaker
04. Dreamlover
05. My All
06. Shake It Off
07. Vision Of Love
08. Fly Like A Bird
09. I’ll Be There
10. Fantasy
11. Don’t Forget About Us
12. Always Be My Baby
13. Honey
14. I Wish You Knew
15. Can’t Let Go
16. One Sweet Day
17. Hero
18. Make It Happen
19. We Belong Together
20. Butterfly reprise
Now I never got to see this tour in the flesh. I had my chances but a trip from the UK to America (no matter how tempting) just wasn’t financially viable for me last year. Having this DVD sorts all that. This is the full experience – you even get the exchanges with the crowd, including a touching description of why Mariah has to sing “Hero” even if it isn’t her favourite song or the moment when one lucky fan gets to come on stage for a hug. It’s a blessed relief to enjoy the show as it was, not cut to pieces or stuffed with taped features that disrupt the flow of the concert.
The set list is safe but solid. It’s all the hits that stormed the charts. Commercial, popular and what keeps the crowd cheering from start to finish. Sure, some of the album cuts would have been nice. But the tour was more a celebration of one of the greatest music comebacks in history. Mariah is pulling out the weapons that made her #1 and when times got tough, brought her back there. She knows it too. I was genuinely surprised by her improved stage presence. She’s come a lot further from her 2003 days. She now seems more relaxed and happy on stage. She’s still posing like a killer catwalk model of course – and looking fantastic while doing it. But she’s absolutely radiant on stage, for the first time really loving being up on that stage performing for the audience.
Of course that audience came for “The Voice” as will anyone watching at home. Fair play – these vocals (for my money anyway) are not dubbed. These are stripped right from the concert. They aren’t her best vocals, they aren’t her worst. They are more raw, more passionate and a little looser. Best example is her rendition of “Vision Of Love”. To me, this record always sounds as fresh as the day it was first released. The word timeless doesn’t do this classic justice. But Mariah experiments with her rendition. It’s not entirely successful and demonstrates her weaker moments towards the climax but it shows her willing to shake things up for a more interesting listen.
Speaking of interesting, the camera have really tried to visually keep things interesting on the eye not just the ear. Filmed concerts can get quite boring without some good visuals to hold the attention. There are some excellent sweeps across both stages that take in the scope of the venue. Some nice cinematic ones too with “Fly Like A Bird” as well, where the camera starts on the floor of the crowd, moves forward and upwards at the stage to Mariah and the army of gospel singers. Some missed opportunities on stuff like “Heartbreaker” and “Honey” I felt. When you’ve got a swarm of dancers coming down some elegant stairs, you want to see it and not crowd clips. Credit to them, they made it fun to watch and got as many varied camera angles as possible.
There’s more than just the concert of course – we have extras! One of the more interesting ones is the Juke Box. Basically you have 12 credits and can create your own set list. You decide what order the songs will play in. Quite a novel feature and one I hadn’t seen before. All the concerts skids are included on “Lovers & Haters” for some comedy value. There’s the karaoke on six tracks, that you can have with or without Mariah singing. The Behind The Scenes feature is about ten minutes long, you get some interviews with the Tatums and Rachel, some Michael as well as Mariah herself on the tour bus. Yes, she is holding a glass of wine in this part. Shock horror!
The better features are on the second disc. The documentary is brilliant, you actually get some fresh information that aren’t just the usual recycled sound bites. The set designs are discussed, proposed/rejected concepts, the whole thought process and experience of performing on the second stage, meeting Rachel and all the dancers, the backing singers (who are very playful in their interviews), rehearsals and bloopers on stage including her near costume malfunction.
There is a discussion on the set list for the concert. This is very insightful. Randy Jackson discussed “Vanishing”, what song Mariah likes to open the show with, how she experiments with merging certain remixed songs (“Heartbreaker”, “My All” and “Dreamlover”). This part is brilliant – you hear Mariah discuss the history of the mixes, creatively, and she mentions she does want to go back to Australia. Good news for all loyal fans down under.
She also touches on celebrities in the audience, the tragic passing of ODB (rest in peace), some of the moments from other tours (fighting Bianca on the Rainbow tour, etc), plus the experience of being on stage with Trey, Boys II Men, Da Brat and Jay Z across the various shows. Her discussion on “Hero” is very, very interesting. She touches on the need to perform it. She makes it clear its not her favourite (quote on quote “corny”) but knows that its helped her. Mostly its helped her fans and many people are coming to hear just that song for the power of its message. She also discusses “Make It Happen” returning to the set list through fan popularity and the thrill of performing “We Belong Together” at the finale since it changed her career and is many couples anthem. Cute moment when she discusses Patti LaBelle and the “Butterfly Outro” – she wants to leave the stage singing like she does to the song that most sums her up.
I cannot stress how great this documentary is. It’s worth the price of the DVD alone. Mariah discusses pretty much all the songs she performs on the show. I find the creative process behind why what songs were chosen and what it feels like to perform those songs live. If you do, this 60 minutes of footage will have you enthralled. It’s about the music and its for the fans. Speaking of which, the fan messages near the end are cute. I love the girl who calls Mariah an angel from above, who helped her get through losing her father. Bless her.
This is – finally – the Mariah DVD we’ve all been waiting for. Excellent features, good, uninterrupted features, superb footage and decent vocals. This is worth the wait and what the fans have been waiting for. Universal, if your listening – keep them coming!
Source: Mariah Carey UK Facebook Group – Carl Butler
Mariah Carey bounced back in spectacular fashion with the release of her Emancipaition Of Mimi album, and this two-DVD set features the singer on her 2006 tour to support that album.
Unlike some live DVDs, all the tracks here were taken from the same concert on the same night, with Carey on top form. Excellent staging and top-notch musicianship was the order of the night, with the 80-minute set containing tracks such as Dream Lover, Honey, Hero and I’ll Be There.
Source: Music Week Magazine | Text: Mariah Connection UK
The Adventures of Mimi DVD continues to receive positive reviews from the UK press.
Now Magazine: `What a voice. What a diva. From the moment she slinks on stage in this live concert DVD in what looks like her bra and pants, accessorised by a billowing cape and high heels, Mariah’s in complete control. Never perhaps the world’s greatest mover, what she lacks in dancing skills she more than compensates for in sheer spectacle. People wanted to write her off five years ago, but this shows how wrong they were. Spectacular.’
Love It! Magazine: `Check out when the ultimate diva played to packed concert halls across America, Canada and Japan. One of the highlights here is her fantastic gig at New York’s Madison Square Garden, where she was joined on stage by Jay-Z. You’ll love every minute of it!’
Reveal Magazine: `Let’s face it, when it comes to divas, there are few as entertaining as Maz Carey. From the OTT trilling, the skimpy outfits, the enormous hair and camp theatrics, the woman’s a living legend! This DVD of her last world tour captures the tunes (Dreamlover! We Belong Together! Lots more!), interesting costumes (our favourite being a sort of see through dressing gown over big pants number) and adds lots of extras.
Source: Mariah Connection UK
Before watching the DVD I hadn’t seen much footage of the MIMI tour, so I was pretty excited to be watching this on DVD in the comfort of my own home, I thought about what I should watch first? The Full concert? The behind the scenes footage or the Documentary?
After thinking about it I ended up watching the concert first and I have to say I was pretty amazed, everything from the stage setting, the Dancers, Mariah’s performance, just everything was electric, there are even some really nice shots of the audience really responding to Mariah’s performances.
People who attended the concert in North America or Japan will already know about the Set list etc… and how good it was. I was very surprised to hear “Juicy” by Biggy Smalls being sampled on Dreamlover, that was a really nice surprise and it worked very well. Another surprise was the presence of Boyz II Men, what a performance – they all just sounded amazing with Mariah.
As I got to the end of the concert, I moved on to the behind the scenes footage, simply amazing!! I have always wondered where and what Mariah does after a gig, here you see her just flaking out on a buggy, being driven to her dressing room (very diva-ish); once she arrives to her dressing room she just plonks herself onto the sofa after giving Mark Sudack a high five; Mark appears in the DVD quite a bit, but without him and Mariah giving anything away about their rumoured romance.
On Disc two is the documentary, that in itself is a great watch – you get to hear Mariah’s input into the tour, the setlist and the stage setting. There are many people that talk in this documentary, set designers, Dancers, Musical Directors and her backing vocalists including the good Trey himself.
OK! So all in all I would give the DVD a 10/10!!! Definitely because this is not like any previous Sony release, this is INTIMATE!!!
Enjoy!!!
Source: Mariah Connection Ireland
Thursday, January 3, 2008
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