The concert itself is a testament to Bjork's talent; and unlike most of today's 'Pop Product Placement' groups, she revels in a world of improvisation and experimentation, and, above all things, seems to be having the time of her life. Working on her "Homogenic" album during the tour (an album B-side, "I Go Humble", appears on the playlist), Bjork performs most of her songs on "Post" and a few from "Debut" with unique spins, incorporating live instrumentation and onstage mixing in a bigger, more varied display than her later "Cambridge" concert.

Standouts in the crew supporting Bjork include Yasuhiro 'Coba' Kobayahsi on the titular accordian (see "The Anchor Song") and, especially, Trevor Morais on drums and percussion (see "I Miss You"). But the best musical ad-libber of the bunch is Bjork herself, riffing on most of her songs wonderfully. And it gets her and live mixer Leila Arab out of a pickle when the programming for "Enjoy" is bungled; the formerly aggressive, dark song (co-produced by Tricky) turns into a colder, more menacing piece, thanks to the stripped bear ambience of the sounds emmitting from Arab's mixing desk and Bjork's illuminatory vocals.

Though there are no DVD special features whatsoever, bar the ability to skip or repeat songs at the press of a button, what remains is a shiny career highlight of the Icelandic chanteuse at her dancy, clubby best, before she got all orchestral and swoony on us. Brilliant.


This girl never ceases to amaze me.   May 18, 2001
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Ah yes, one more "björk product" which not only don't I regret buying but left me asking for more. Although I must confess that the concert wasn't exactly what I expected, but it turned out to be better. What I expected was Björk singing and a lot of mixers backstage playing the exact track of each song as it appears on the album. But instead, she decided to take a much more instrumental approach by joining with Yasuhiro "Coba" Kobayahsi on the Accordion, Trevor Morais in the drums and the well known Guy Sigsworth on the keyboards. But she also calls on stage her programmers and mixers who really deserve as much attention as the rest of the musicians.

But of course, the center of attention is Björk. As I expected her voice is as superb as always. She doesn't run out of air for once and she doesn't miss a note (I'm starting to suspect that she's not human at all ;) ). Her verbal communication with the public is limited to a "thank you" after every song (with that peculiar icelandic accent) but the again, all she needs to communicate with them is her music. But what's interesting as well is the way she communicates the songs with her body. The way she dances, walks, the gestures she makes....

But perhaps what's so great about this album is that it's very spontaneous. Since it was only one take there's no chance to "edit" the mistakes. In fact, the video has it's "dramatic" moment when the mixer, Leila Arab, seems to be having some problems with the mixing machine while Björk's singing "enjoy". In the end it seems as if the machine just dies and kills all the audio on stage. But the spontaneous aspect of the video doesn't end there. If your planning on singing along while Björk sings you'll be surprised because she changes the order of the lyrics of the songs as she pleases. In fact, she adds up a new paragraph to "possibly maybe". Musically the songs are quite different as well as she takes a much more instrumental approach to each song, in particular with the addition of the accordion.

The video also includes a song that doesn't appear on any album composed by Mark Bell and Björk. The song is called "I go humble".

As for the other aspects of the video I must mention that the direction is superb. Hats off to David Barnard because this is probably the best directed concert video that I've ever seen, although he doesn't focus much on the public. The scenery was also very nice. Very simple but very nice indeed. Especially when she sings "isobel".

So 5 stars for this video. If you're a fan of björk then you should probably buy it. But if what you're looking for is to listen to the songs just as the sound on the album blended with a live performance then you should probably think about it before buying.