DVD Reviews

That's not too bad at all, though the Company's not the same.

They don't make them like this anymore: the guitar Cuhullan rocks the Emerald Isle.

Rory Gallagher was someone very special: an invincible hero on-stage and as extremely shy when out of the spotlight. Catching his very essence on the celluloid must have been no mean feat, yet this one has it all and is an impeccable companion to the legendary live album of the same title.

It sees the guitarist's triumphant return to his beloved Eireland, and as fantastic as it is, feeding off the home soil like Antheus, there's a certain wave of nostalgie surging, when Rory breaks into "A Million Miles Away", very poignant, illustrated by Cork scenes. And the feeling is more intense with the bonus footage, a home video of that year's fall's Japanese tour: there, the artist's equally natural as in the film, rambling in the streets or playing "Goodnight, Irene" at a party - the more joyful, then, the "Going To My Hometown" mandolin-driven folky stomp comes down.

Gallagher goes immensely deep into the music, belying his own statement "music should never be so serious", emotions so overt that there's often a close-up of Rory's face rather than hands, sweat dripping from his chin like notes from the beaten-up Stratocaster, Rod de'Ath and Gerry McAvoy watching tightly to follow the leader. Revealing some of his secrets for the camera - bottleneck's better with an electric guitar and steel slider for an acoustic - he weaves rock, blues and jazz into one solo, like in "Walk On Hot Coals", and has the major kicks out of that.

He shares it with the kids who stretch towards the stage to catch a bit of this magic, and there's the utmost level of mutual understanding between an artist and the audience to be witnessed. The spell is so full-on, it's impossible to notice when exactly Rory changes guitars halfway through "Who's That Coming". But why stare, anyway? Much better is revelling in this revelatory playing - especially, when the hero's gone.

*****

Play a Humpty Dumpty experience and look not only at the dark side.

There's no movie like "The Wall". No other musical effort had grown into such a state-of-art visual statement to linger on for years with the same impact. This edition gives an additional impulse to the nerves, as the film makers - designer Storm Thorgeson and music producer James Guthrie among them - involvement allowed to be it fuller an experience; even menus are impressive to an extent that even exploring the DVD content before delving into it becomes an adventure.

That doesn't lessen the shock of watching the movie again, as more details make their way into one's head following the way of Pink's mutation from a maggot into a worm instead of a butterfly he could have become in his rock star stance. It's much stronger now. Vera Lynn's "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot" playing on the telly is a grand lead-off to the hero's childhood frustration to equal those Freudian images of "fecking flowers", as Roger Waters calls them, and a ominous precursor to the poisonous rock 'n' roll of "Young Lust". It's still scary to see the startling sequence of bombers turning into crosses, the Union Jack revealing a cross from which blood flows into a gutter, and finally pinpoint Pink's crucifix position in a swimming pool to the Passion Play which starts as, with "One Of My Turns", the human spring which was pressed down for all of the life is released to the frightening consequences and his demons break loose into a fascist pandemonium.

With great astonishment one can think of how pictorial the music must be for the whole film to be based upon it, the idea of doing a film being there from the beginning, even before the album was written. Thankfully, the movie is not depressive as the album: to achieve that, "Hey You" had been withdrawn - to appear here, in all its hopelessness, for the first time ever - while more personal songs, like "When The Tigers Broke Free", that didn't go well with the album's universal abstractness, were inserted to sharpen the images. Another kind of sharpening comes with the "The Other Side Of The Wall" '80s documentary where the actual FLOYD's show glimpses to make it clear why director Alan Parker states he didn't want any concert footage in for "The Wall" to stand out, and artist Gerald Scarfe is seen working on the sketches of "weird psychopatic quality". Hard to believe, there's only 15 minutes of animation in the movie, there seems to be much more as it's taken a life of its own.

Not many pay attention to it as well as to the fact that it was Bob Geldof singing some numbers instead of Waters, so those bits and pieces are analysed in the new retrospective stuffed with interviews with Parker, Waters and their partners in cinematic crime. And if there's no humor in the film, which Roger considers a big flaw, he and Scarfe make up for that in their running commentary, which goes beyond giving explanations to what's in the screen and into reminiscing and philosophizing about things like child abuse. This feature, though, has to be left last to be studied, because it may ruin the overall impression. Just like the wall itself.

*****

Charged and obsessively driven, one of the undeservedly underrated British bands do a cock on the walk.

Yardbirds ROOSTER weren't even though they might look rather stiff here, in a studio set, trying to keep from blowing it with their atomic performance. 1972 caught them abandoned by singing guitarist John Du Cann, the vocalist slot was taken by Chris Farlowe, fresh from COLOSSEUM ruins. The personnel shift resulted in style melting from heavy metal to jazz rock without losing any of their heat , a transition too obvious with band playing material inherited from previous line-up, and this one still to cut "Made In England" album.

Not that they appear any weaker now, and "Breakthrough" organ riff much more powerful than original piano figure gives a hint of how fantastic were ROOSTER stage shows. And if the leader Vincent Crane looks hippish -straight mane, bandana, embroided vest - swaying frantically behind the Hammond, Farlowe is hipper yet. Hardly a showman with that orc complexion, he has a powerful stage presence, hollering out and hamming it up, shaking a tambourine and humorously munching a sandwich while his bandmates are immersed in "Black Snake" which Chris peppers with a jazzy scat. Then Crane goes wild, as the lyrics dictate, sticking out a tongue like that same snake. As a contrast, solemn "Can't Find A Reason" reveals a softer, safer side to the ensemble settling into baroque ballad to give fiery drummer Ric Parnell a break before hypnotic, Lizard King-like drift turns into mesmeric instrumental madness of "The Rock" that Steve Bolton lets rip with his guitar.

They were amazingly tightly-locked, "A Spoonful Of Bromide Helps The Pulse Rate Go Down" capturing, with a smoke from a cigarette laid on the keys, the very essence of ROOSTER, who could have been huge had this monster of a group not sadly fallen musically between two decades, '60s and '70s, and lost their battle to the kind of PURPLE and HEEP. With Vince Crane long gone now and all the due glory belonging to the past, this DVD is more than welcome.

*****

A strange fruit of progressive scene: a beauty and the beast in their blooming prime.

The proper story of CURVED AIR is to be told yet, but this is a valuable addition to any, not only a prog fan's, collection. A short movie shot in 1974 has the British combo walk a thin line between method and madness, classical music and experimental, with a fine theatricality thrown in for a good measure. All this provides an excellent glance into the band's world, a further line given to the founding member Darryl Way who, interviewed now, talks about the origins of the group and how it came to be, when he, a student of The Royal College of Music, met Francis Monkman, who studied at the Royal Academy. It took a certain lady, still, to make their Intellectuality peculiarly unique - if cherchez la femme is a unique formula.

But Sonja Kristina only added to the guys' innate sensuality: it speaks volumes when, in "Marie Antoinette", Way caresses a Mellotron and Monkman, eyes closed, gets lost in some reverie even while soloing on his transparent-body guitar. Very impressive - and expressive too. Sonja looks innocent, fitting into the acoustic mood of "Melinda More Or Less" so perfectly it's hard to believe - especially with her face superimposed over some garden footage - that this fairy-like creature can spit fury in "Propositions", suitably illustrated with images of birds of prey. Kristina seems to impersonate their winging in her twisted dance to the rhythm of Mike Wedgewood's fervent bass and the violent violin of Way's who leaves his instrument a minute later to move to organ and then join Florian Pilkington-Miksa on the drums. A method to the band's madness becomes clear as Darryl visibly relaxes - what a paradox! - getting to frenetic pace of "Vivaldi" extemporations just to make, in the midst of it, his stringed instrument a percussive one and tease a feedback out of it like a consummate rocker. Which he was, indeed, all they were.

Yet they were too charged and too eclectic to retain those moments of crazy blissfulness for long, so to have this phantasmagoria preserved for posterity as a companion to 1975's "Live" album is great.

*****

Whether it's possible to concentrate on aural detail of Holland's best is a question, but to miss any visual moment of this band seems positively impossible.

It's a timely thing to reassert FOCUS' status now, when not only their native country, Netherlands, became a place where progressive rock still thrives, but the ensemble resurrected for good as well. That brought about a certain bout of nostalgie, and the thirst can be quenched with this brilliant retrospective in which the founder member Thijs van Leer is a guide leading through the key moments of the group's illustrious history or, actually, different stages FOCUS are shown at, weaving their sonic web from thin to thick and intense.

It can be deconstructed for one's pleasure, as van Leer brings forth the trivia rather than chronology, yet it serves well for the better understanding of the music: to know that the name was chosen because "there was so much music around already to distract people from their own problems, and there is a music possible that can be a catalyzer in order to focus upon your own shit", and that FOCUS appeared to be an instrumental group out of poverty, if that explains anything. Still, they made it an advantage to enjoy themselves so much that to play almost endlessly. There's even an illustration, "Hocus Pocus", a tune so arresting the quartet can't stop, and Jan Akkerman who plugged out has to step back in. The footage is as unique as van Leer's yodel, involving, beside the "Old Grey Whistle Test" fragments, promotional videos, like "House Of The King" played in boutique between the glass shelves which perfectly conveys the transparent fragility of the music, and movie shot at the manor where the artists used to live in 1972, at the time of the "Moving Waves" cooking.

There, Akkerman, "the only guitar player in Holland with apt", is seen standing in a room with Flamandian pictures on the walls doing a classical piece before calling the others in to kick out a rehearsal, and that's quite a domestic scene in the kitchen, where Thijs philosophizes about the band's music being "not a revolution but only evolution", Jan adding it's a "solution", possibly meaning the drinks on the table, and Pierre van der Linden hitting his knees with drumsticks while leaning on the stack of cheese - all very Dutch, and very whole is a picture these pieces create.

Out of deconstruction comes a synthesis, although the focus is on the onset, with extended live extracts from 1973 and 1974, the latter having the combo perform "Hamburger Concerto", and from the later line-ups only "Angel Wings" featuring Philip Catherine on guitar. But the story of "Sylvia" being told - even sung - and a wonderful sight of Thijs, seated on the floor, serenading the landlady are more than adequate compensation for what's not here. What is here and now is a new FOCUS, so the film leaves off in 2002 where the next DVD is picking up.

*****

"Let's all go to the Magician's Birthday." Did anyone ever hope for these words to come true. Welcome to a dream, then.

Welsh sensation on the rise coming down with a storm.

It's always suspicious when a young band with only two albums on their deposit receive accolades, but Classic Rock Society isn't to give it easily, so when KARNATAKA won the Best New Band and Best Female Vocalist awards in 2001 it was deservedly. That October they played London's Mean Fiddler club as if to confirm their success, and here's this performance, building slowly to gradually resolve into an atmosphere quite loose. Punters go for it, someone saluting the band with a bottle of vodka. In the beginning, "Time Stands Still" has the sextet frozen, musicians looking estranged except for guitarists Paul Davies and Ian Jones who get the show relentlessly going for others to tighten up their act with "Heaven Can Wait". Backing singers lift it up to ethereal effect that becomes crystal during instrumental break in "Heart Of Stone" - a whole unity is visibly born.

"Shall we rock?" asks singer Rachel Jones before "Tell Me Why", and there is rock attack in those folky songs of innocence and experience - "Woman In Me" feels seductive. Rachel knows how to rule the crowd, all the guys sighing out loud when she leads into "Delicate Flame Of Desire" from the forthcoming album. Shaking the tambourine and dancing shamanic, during "Crazy" it looks like Jim Morrison's finally found a new body yet there is that intrinsic grace of a Welsh girl, so clear in a video which caught her walking a wintry countryside and Ian minstrelling by her side. Black-and-white backstage footage, on the contrary, shows KARNATAKA not as a bucolic bunch but ordinary people. That's the secret of their appeal - and they're only rising for the moon.

****

British steel shines and cuts as ever - the game continues.

"United - heavy metal and JUDAS PRIEST!" bawls out Tim Owens from the London's Brixton Academy stage in December 2001. Who's to argue? The band, however, seem eager to state it again and again. If anyone still has doubts about how new vocalist fits into this ageless bastion of British metal, all the worries should be dicarded now. Though Ripper made it into the fold from the cover group, he doesn't pretend to be Rob Halford - good for him! Straddling across the stage, Owens is visually more calm than his predecessor, which gives him an opportunity to work free up to making "The Ripper" completely his own. The singer acts like some caricature figure - quite a contrast to old soldiers, guitarists K. K. Downing and Glenn Tipton and bassist Ian Hill, who look too serious trading their riffs - strange.

Everything's different off-stage: "Demolition Time", a short documentary incorporating bits from the soundcheck that makes a separate feature, shows the musicians as a humorous bunch. They're giggling and joking, sharing impressions of their recent Japanese tour, of which there's a footage, and showing around the tour bus. No sign of the fury PRIEST demonstrate before the faithful audience. Scott Travis, whom the colleagues call Osama Bin Drummer, is very shy, and here's another side of Ripper seen when, relaxing, he breaks into a Roy Harper song - a key to the treatment the singer gives to acoustic numbers like "Lost And Found" and "Diamonds And Rust". Kicking off the concert, he's up on the riser in a silver suit urging the fans to sing along "Metal Gods" before leading them into a mix of hits old and new. With all the freshness, tradition's served well, even trademark bike finds its way back on-stage before "Painkiller". "What do I think of the show?" - Ripper asks. And answers, "It was a lovely piece of work." Who's to argue?

****3/4

One more gathering on the ledge, all the usual suspects and more trodding the beaten turf.

As the years go, Cropredy Festival has become a kind of folk institution. A meeting of friends, that's how one of the FAIRPORTS call the event but there's more to it: Cropredy has something of a family thing about it - children are dancing on the ground while their parents enjoy camping. In Simon Nicol's words, "Meet On The Ledge" has "an unparalleled emotional impact", so going there annually is a tradition, which everybody follows, a mixed bunch of people, from the folksters who proudly wave the banner saying, "10 Years At The Front", to metal bangers. "The crowd will always be with you," sing those guilty in this crime of togetherness, and they're goddamn right. There's a snippet of the band playing JETHRO TULL's "Life's A Long Song", amid the interviews where they talk of favourite albums and songs and then take the narrative to the current material and to the celebration itself, because Cropredy is this lifelong song.

Two prime melodicists of classic rock playing one-off gig - low-key yet glorious. Though conquest it's not.

Released for the first time in 1997, the band's only full-length video re-emerges with enhanced sound quality and a handful of extras.

The Dean of rock art faculty opens the doors into his vision.

If there's an artist whose work is as important to rock as its musical aspect, Roger Dean is the one. The players would be the last to deny this. "Maybe, without Roger's work YES wouldn't have sold so many records," says Steve Howe, when interviewed for this amazing documentary. Before, it was a book called "Views" that became a best-seller in 1975 and, to Dean's surprise, influenced a whole generation of designers - up to the "Star Wars" makers. Now, the DVD not only takes it further down the time - the pictures shown panoramically, sometimes animated, start to come to life - but actually is a biography of "the artist and philosopher," as presenter Rick Wakeman calls him. That's not an exaggeration: welcoming into the world of his, the master explains his method, "For me, landscape is existence and a journey through it is a spiritual experience, and what I'm trying to do is to catch this spiritual essence." A genius, or, in Wakeman's words, a genie bringing luck to the bands he works with - extras include performances from three of those: URIAH HEEP, ASIA and Wakeman.

"He's the only guy to be in and out of the YES' camp more times that I have," goes one of Rick's humorous yet insightful remarks, and Dean tells why in the bonus Q & A session. It's with YES that he found his fame and creative freedom. Not based on lyrics or music, Roger's artwork served rather as a description of the band's emotional state, so when it went wrong his pathways took a turn too. Literally - having followed Howe to ASIA, the artist changed curvy lines for angular and drawing for painting to come up with another classic series, John Wetton thanks him for in the film. Delving into details, the master points to the bits that are easy to miss, like similarity of forms of the hands of ASIA's dragon, eagle and robot, while camera zooms in on the rider hidden in "Red Dragon" which graces Howe's "Not Necessarily Acoustic". Those '80s covers didn't make it to the original book anyway - as well as early art school sketches Dean shows tracking his life back to the very moment in the '60s when he'd been commissioned to design the Ronnie Scott's jazz club interior.

It might be a loss to the music that Ulrich Roth decided to stick to the "German Hendrix" tag and has been following his idol's style even in the clothing with all those feathered hats, headbands and flamboyant shirts on. As no surprise, then, comes the trio format Uli chose for his ELECTRIC SUN, the output of the band showcased on this DVD. Having parted company with SCORPIONS in 1979, he still tried to fit in the day's fashion by combining bluesy vibe with disco rhythms, a bit awkward move that makes studio clips like "Showdown" or "Lilac" with musicians miming feel dated, Roth himself looking uncomfortable. His passion surely was a stage, yet though poor quality of live footage - in particular, of "Japanese Dreams" from the 1980's Hendrix festival - can't hide the energy emanating from the guitarist, this collection out of his vaults is for the fans only.

A loyal lot, more likely to cheer classic "Red House" blues than "Virgin Killer", should find a big value in songs recorded in 1982 in France, at Moonlight festival, the last rise of the three-piece SUN scoring the most with long jams. In time for 1983 UK and Sweden tour the line-up was expanded to include backing singers and two drummers who gave the band another dimension. Simon Fox and Clive Bunker (yes, of JETHRO TULL fame) are seen performing unbelievable dual thing - duet and duel at once - while black girls breathe spirit into "Angel Of Piece" letting the leader go wild. "Icebreaker" depicts the drive at which Roth embarked on the road, occasionally steering away from the blues to demonstrate all his skills in "Beethoven's Paraphrase", a classical direction he's set to pursuing later on. Glance over the shoulder is always a good thing...

***

Strange, indeed, yet S.O.D. were the first band to proudly wear the "crossover" tag. Even stranger is that their every performance is a double show, one being what the quartet put on, the other the audience themselves. En masse element feels vital to what's going on there, fans going wild no matter how polite their heroes are. And they're aren't - at least on-stage. Which concerns mainly their singer Billy Milano always looking and behaving like a grown-up teenager - especially, when in comes a flashback to 1985. Yes, they've been around for long - since then Milano grew a mane of hair, while ANTHRAX-spawned guitarist Scott Ian, who in "behind the scenes" cuts appears as intelligent singing a praise to his vocalist shaved his head off. Quite a personal thing, just like pre-gig doings in the dressing room and in-studio tips that the musicians give to those ignited by S.O.D.

There are many of them, cheering up as Billy farts to, spits at or dives into their ranks. This simplicity, epitomised in "Milano Mosh", is buying, and the singer breaking a CD the same minute he calls it a "piece of history" feels an illustration to the "No Turning Back" song. In fact, both concerts there hark back to 1992. The more welcome is 1999's Ian commenting on the footage. New York show, though shot very amateurish, feels exciting, the feeling that Germany outdoor performance comes short of. Which doesn't mean it lacks energy - "March Of The S.O.D." inevitably gets the audience going from the first second to the last - but the eye contact is important. And that is what this DVD gives in abundance.

***3/4