By now if you are reading this, or don’t live off the beaten track you should have managed to catch Negura Bunget live at some point. As it mentions on the accompanying one sheet they have played 180 concerts in Europe over the last three years, I have certainly been lucky catching them quite a few times over this period and there is a good chance I will be seeing them twice at least over the coming year. So it is nice that they are releasing a document illustrating themselves in concert which is being released on DVD and double CD. Finally you can settle back in your most comfortable chair and scatter pine needles and earth on the carpet and watch and listen to this without having to smell other peoples sweat and pay silly amounts for a beer. Yep the atmosphere may not be quite the same but it does have its advantages.
‘Focul Viu’ is Romanian for ‘Living Fire’ and it is fitting that this concert was filmed in Bucharest in January 2008 and is important as it will be the very last release featuring the bands classic line-up before things all went a bit silly and the group was fragmented. This means you get Hupogrammos providing main vocals and Sol Faur on guitar and it is proclaimed as being a work in the “same spirit” of the group even if it was completed after its demise.
The 90 minute concert starts with the enthralling ‘Primul Om’ and it is quickly evident to see that it is shot professionally from all angles. I found one of the most interesting aspects was being able to watch in close-up all the interesting instruments that the group traditionally incorporate into their music being played. This will be really intriguing for anyone who has never seen them live and wants to know how they recreate some of the weird sounds on their albums, yep hitting a big piece of wood with strange hammers is one such method. Shot in slightly cold and chilly pastels of blue and purple the lighting is equally enchanting. As for the crowd we only really get sweeping shots after songs have finished. They are loud in applause but not a sound can be heard during songs and they all seem rooted to the spot. I did find myself wondering if there was anything in the way of movement to the violence of numbers such as ‘IIII’ but think apart from some head-banging probably not. Speaking of which the ever lovely Inia Dinia does plenty of that and really gets into things as she hammers away at the keyboards.
The set is a great mix of stuff leading up to and including much of their transcendental ‘Om’ it all clmaxes with the breathtaking ‘?esarul de Lumini’ (also included as an extra video clip on the disc) and lovers of that particular album will definitely be happy as most is played Between these we are flung into numbers such as ‘Al locului’ and ľ of the out there and schizophrenic world of ‘n Crugu Bradului’ One complaint would perhaps be the omission of some older numbers such as ‘În-Zvîcnirea Apusului’ but then again you cant have everything and this is no short set.
I quite often have not got the concentration when it comes to watching music on screen rather than actually being there but even though this was the length of an average film it did manage to captivate me through the whole running time. This is available as either DVD or double CD pack or as special including both, it doesn’t look like there are any versions with mud in wooden boxes constructed from Romanian pine this time around but whichever version you go for this will be the last chance you have to catch this line-up together unless they resolve their differences, which is highly unlikely.
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