Billy Squier--Live in the Dark

While rock music, like fashion, recyles its wares every couple of decades or so, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict that--just like the South--bloated '80s arena rock (those blandly textured power ballads by boys with big hair wielding phallic guitars) will never rise again. Billy Squier, who is notably absent from the All Music Guide to Rock (which, in all fairness, I have to say is their oversight), is less obnoxious than most of the '80s metal dinosaurs, but only dyed-in-the-wool fans will get weak in the knees over this Dolby Digital 5.1 enhanced set filmed at the Santa Monica Civic Center in 1982, which features such middlin' hits as "In the Dark," "The Stroke" and, arguably the best, "Lonely Is the Night" (in fact, almost negating everything I've just said, this particular song has been running through my head for weeks on end after watching this DVD). Not a necessary purchase. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)