Live DVDs—why? I’m not sure how to use them. I understand the mechanics, but I’m not sure where the pleasure or art lies. Watching the show isn’t the same as being at the show, and it’s a discrete, sedentary activity. Basically, you’re watching television, and because you have to watch and listen to appreciate it, the live DVD doesn’t join your life the way a purely sonic CD does. So what do you do with them?

The Bangles’ Return to Bangleonia is a live show from 2000 when the original lineup re-united. Since the setlist is fairly similar to the one they recently played here, I watched it with the band’s commentary on. I want something new from an album or DVD and don’t have much interest in souvenirs of shows I’ve seen. I’d rather remember what it felt like and sounded like, but an entire band-authorized bootleg industry has emerged, so there are many who feel differently. The same people who buy the Jazz Fest live discs of the shows they just left could want a DVD of a show they’ve already seen.

Listening to the Bangles talk while watching them play suggested a new perspective. They wisecrack about each others’ musical talents, identifying Susanna Hoffs’ three solo riffs and the tendency they had to write everything with the same beat, and you get the impression that the fun for the Bangles was and remains being together, and the music was the vehicle that brought them together. It makes the commentary fun, but it also explains why the Bangles songs are really good but they don’t add up to a compelling body of work – you don’t get the sense that anyone in the band had to do this or die.

One thing to be said for the North Mississippi Allstars’ Keep on Marchin’ is that the songs are shorter at this performance in Burlington, Vermont from 2005. For me, that’s a good thing because I’ve admired the N. Mississippis, and when they toured with John Hiatt, they showed what monsters they can be when playing real songs. Unfortunately, the reality of lengthy, one chord blues jams is hard to get next to. The blues scales and boogie grooves blur together, but not in the transcendent P-Funk way. They demonstrate some mild measure of restraint here, and for the first time I can actually tell one song from another. I still have to look back at the setlist to remember songs, but when I do that, I can recall a few.

Did I learn anything by seeing it? Not much. The camera paid a lot of attention to the Luther Dickinson’s hands as he played guitar, but that’s part of the standard live shot repertoire. There’s no art in the visuals of either DVD, but there’s nothing wrong either. They’re professionally done, and if anything, both DVDs serve a documentary function, like reference books. Here’s what the Bangles and North Mississippi Allstars looked and sounded like in 2000 and 2005 respectively. Both have interview material, but those serve as appendices to the document. In that sense, a library of live DVDs would serve as a musical Encyclopedia Britannica, but how many families that grew up with a full set of Britannicas or World Books ever opened them once their kids were through junior high?