Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

This release surely ain`t targeted at the average Joe who knows "Pink Floyd" by the title "Another Brick in the Wall" and probably has heard "Money" on his FM radio. It`s not targeted at the fan of "modern" Pink Floyd - a guy who knows his "Division Bell" by heart. And it isn`t even targeted at the regular Roger Waters era Pink Floyd fan who considers "Dark Side of the Moon" the most important piece of music created in the post-Beethoven world. No, Sir, this is a bootleg video of Pink Floyd in 1970 - the days when Syd Barrett was long gone and mad as a hatter but Roger still didn`t have his "vision" for the band. On this video we hear and watch the performances of 6 songs - "Set the Controls for the heart of the sun", "Cymbaline", "Atom heart mother", "Granchester Meadows", "Green is the colour" and "Careful with that axe, Eugene". The performances are lenghty and some of them are even interesting. Yet the quality of both video and sound is dissapointing, and only braindead people in the psychedelic years could consider showing boring landscapes to the sound of some of those songs instead of the musicians a sensible idea. Man, it reminded me of Latvian television when it didn`t have enough clips of "Coca Cola" and "Always" to fill the gaps between programs and showed some rubbish landscapes accompanied with elevator muzak instead.

I know you`re probably gonna crucify me but I didn`t find the performance captured on this DVD particulary amazing. Ok, one simply has to appreciate the singing abilities of Mr. McFerrin and one also has to agree that the whole thing is pretty impressive for a complete improvisation. But one could probably notice that the whole thing isn`t that interesting musically and that it`s certainly not an entirely musical experience you get from Bobby McFerrin. Ok, Frank Zappa answered the question wheter humour belongs in music but as a matter of fact McFerrin seems to me to be more of a clown and less of a musician on this record. Yeah, sure at some times it`s funny but would you really like to listen more than once to a guy clapping upon a spectators jacket with his hands and singing: "I`m in leather"? I certainly would not. While it would probably be much more fun to watch McFerrin with my own eyes, in my opinion his magic didn`t transfer well onto this record. The biggest problem for me is that there are no real songs on here - mainly you could call that jamming if Bobby used any instruments. Therefore the only really interesting part of the concert was "Walkin`" where another dude appeared on the stage and Bobby didn`t just do his vocally miracles. In that case the bonus tracks - music videos for "Good Lovin`" and... "Don`t worry be happy" did a much better job of entertaining me. For I prefer songs to mindless vocalisations.

I don`t know whether the White Stripes will last as an important act of alternative music or they will fade into background like you name who, but right now it seems to me that they can`t just go wrong. Before watching and listening and enjoying this DVD I thought the Stripes had only a few really good songs under their belt. But now I`m sure that it`s not the case - "Apple Blossom", "You`re Pretty Good Lookin` (for a girl)", "Hotel Yorba" are probably the best performances of the night, but the band is impressive in deed. They even don`t do some of their most popular numbers - there`s no sign of "Fell in love with a girl" or "We`re going to be friends" or "Sugar never tasted so good". But we still get the mad Jack White slashing the guitar like he was some sort of Slash, and we get Meg White playing the drums with bare feet, and sometimes even with one hand. And if you say that a really great concert can`t happen if the band has only two members for they won`t be able to make music intense enough, you`re goddamn wrong. There`s no limits for this band, or at least it`s what it seems. Now I`m sure that one day I`ll see them live, because it would be a sin not to.

Only a madman would desire to watch a thing like this. Everybody (or at least a few elitist people on the web) knows that Elvis` best period in terms of music was the 1950s and after that he had a major decline turning from the worlds leading rock`n`roller into a Frank Sinatra with shaking hips and knees who didn`t have Sinatras voice. And 1977 was also the year when the king died (or was abducted by space aliens). By that time he was not particulary old, a bit fat, and he sung stupid songs. In terms of songs this concert isn`t actually as bad as I suspected - it has both "I want to be your teddy bear" and "Jailhouse Rock" - two from his finest numbers, but the actual performance of these songs isn`t very impressive. And neither is it interesting to see and hear him perform some stupid mellow songs that he can`t sing at all and to those he even can`t shake his overweight body. It`s a really pityful experience watching him, knowing that just a month later Elvis would have been gone. But this isn`t a good way to say farewell. At least after watching a performance like this you`d most likely never think that that guy was named the King.

John Fogerty was the leader of one huge rock`n`roll band - "Creedence Clearwater Revival" - and after that he has recorded quite a lot of solo work. In mid nineties he had one of his comebacks, and this is when this concert was recorded. I must admit that I had never heard before a major part of those songs on the album, but since he does many of the CCR numbers, the concert is interesting enough. His band sounds quite powerful and his vocals haven`t aged that badly. "Bad Moon Rising" is almost as good as it was in the sixties, but "I Put A Spell on You", while being performed quite solidly doesn`t match the performance at Woodstock in 1968, which is no wonder, of course. The newer material is also quite good, although certainly not groundbreaking. John never was a real revolutionary in the music business and he doesn`t become much more radical while getting older. Still this is a very nice concert for people who like that old time R`n`b sound from the days when r`n`b didn`t mean something similar to rap music with some sweet sounding nonsense replacing real music.

I guess very few concerts with close to no spectators at all ever had a guest list as impressive as this one. Could you believe that along with the Stones who organised this even the stage was walked by (in ascending order) Marianne Faithful, Taj Mahal, Jethro Tull, The Who and The Dirty Mac (a supergroup of John Lennon, Mitch Mitchell (Jimi Hendrix drummer), Keith Richard and Eric Clapton). Most of the performances are more than awesome. Although there are som major problems as well. First, Jethro Tull don`t play the music - only Andersons singing is done live (although we actually get to see Tony Iommi - the future Black Sabbath guitarist - on their line-up), but whats worse is that "The Dirty Mac" after doing a beautiful version of "Yer Blues" are joined on stage by a violin player and... Yoko Ono. After that conceptual shit begins - Yoko screams, the violinst plays something totally unlistenable, and that is supposed to be called art. Anyhow, the Stones own performance is good - they do "Sympathy for the Devil", "Jumpin` Jack Flash", "Parachute Woman" and one more song. "The Who" on the other hand play a part from their rock-opera "A quick one" and it`s also good, especially I dig Keith Moon bashing those drums like only he can. Overall - a good performance, and wasn`t it for Yoko, it`d be even great.

Can you imagine a thing like this - a band that was at their peak just two years ago now is a complete waste? I guess you can, because it happens to many bands. Still this is a perfect example for the situation - in 1972 on "Scandinavian Nights" Deep Purple truly rocked. There wasn`t a single boring song in sight, jamming was memorable and singing was as powerful as it can get. But by 1974 Ian Gillan (vocals) and Glen Glover (bass) had left the band taking up David Coverdale as vocalist and some other guy to play the bass. They play much of the material from their latest album "Burn" which isn`t necesserialy bad but it`s much weaker than the Gillan-era stuff. And what comes out of it? Nothing particulary good. Coverdale`s vocal power doesn`t nearly match the one of his precessedor, Ritchie Blackmore seems to be clueless what he wants to play in his solos - he`s sometimes even sillier than that "Spinal Tap" guy with his violin. They do play "Smoke on the water" which wasn`t included on "Scandinavian Nights" but the performance is somewhat uninspiring. And what do they do with "Space Truckin`"! It goes for 30 minutes and most of the time John Lord plays totally unlistenable stuff on the keyboard. Ritchie, on the other hand, suddenly crashes his guitar into a camera on stage and starts throwing things. Something goes on fire, but since the concert itself wasn`t on fire, even that doesn`t bring too much of my attention to the performance.