Reviewed by Matthew Cordle

This is Soul Survivor's first live worship DVD release and featuring as it does worship leaders Ben Cantelon, Beth Croft, Jamie Rodwell and Tom Field has plenty of appeal for the 30 odd thousand who attended this year's event. It's impossible to pick out highlight songs as they are all excellent, but they include Matt Redman's powerful declaration of what "Our God" is, Tim Hughes' uplifting "Jesus Saves", Ben Cantelon's invigorating "Saviour Of The World" and a beautiful unaccompanied version of "Amazing Grace". The lyrical depth of the songs is coupled with a top rate band while it brings a lump to one's throat to see so many young people praising God so passionately. Paul Burton's audio mix is excellent and the camera work is creative and well edited, with good use of jimmy jibs. Unfortunately, there appears to have been a few problems in either the filming or manufacturing process. The video quality is often a bit shimmery, presumably either due to being filmed at night with resultant digital noise or the NTSC conversion process (the DVD has been authored as Region 0, NTSC for greater global compatibility,) and there is also a large flicker right across the screen at 34:23 that surely someone should have spotted in the edit/authoring process! In terms of the DVD package as such...well, there isn't one - it's just the songs. It would have been good to put some thought into releasing this as a resource, with sheet music of songs supplied on the disc and maybe some interview clips with writers about their songs (as on the Worship Together website,). Additionally, an introduction to the event itself for viewers who have never attended would have been helpful. So, while musically excellent, more thought and care would have made this a great DVD resource.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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