genesis - twickenham

saw genesis at twickenham in July 2007 -awsome is the only word to describe the night , have had the double cd since release it gets played inthe car every day of the week so as most a bit delated seeing the dvd will not now be realed until May

As brilliant as ever, if not even better. . . .

I was lucky enough to get to see OMD perform again during this latest tour and it was, as always, a fantastic show. It's brilliant to have a DVD to remember it by, it brings back all those emotions experienced during the live concert - I really hope they do another tour so I can take my kids next time around !

They haven't lost any of their old magic and remain one of my 5 all-time favourite groups.

If you like OMD, then I definitely recommend getting this DVD.

not as good as the concert from memphis

I'm a big fan of celine dion as a singer and there is no doubt when she's at her best she is the best.However the quality of her singing in this show from las vegas is not as good as it can be and nowhere near as good as her singing on the vhs recording of her live performance from Memphis Tennessee.Many of celine's fans wil tell you the Memphis concert is her best ever performance and I would agree with them - she sings lots of the songs that are featured in this las vegas show but more tunefully and with more commitment and punch ( perhaps because memphis was a one-off event and more like fun than work for her!).And the mix of songs is just right in the memphis concert with lots of good dancing,and joking around with her band and singers and the audience thrown in for good measure.This las vegas show is is visually spectacular but often not as spectacular as it was meant to be because at times the lighting on dancers is so poor it's difficult to see them.There are two discs and I think many people will be satisfied with buying them because of the large amount of bonus material.But if you want to hear celine singing at her best get hold of a copy of the concert from memphis.It's on vhs and hasn't been put on dvd yet which is astonishing considering how good it is.

Utterley Amazing!

Being one of the hundreds of thousands that went to see Take That on tour I placed my pre-order for the Beautiful World DVD many weeks before it was actually released.
With very fond memories of the live tour I was unsure whether the DVD would be able to re-create the atmosphere I experienced in the MEN arena at Manchester.
It did.
The hairs on my neck stood up when the amazing classical overture kicked in at the very beginning and it did not stop there. The entire DVD is edited with excellent interludes and the extras on the DVD give you an insight into the tour that I have never experienced before.
All in all the DVD as a whole took me back to that cold December night where I experienced possibly one of the best concerts around.
The added extras on the DVD just make for an excellent peek into what life is really like on tour!
You are bound to enjoy this DVD even if you are not the biggest Take That fan.

fab fab fab

i missed the start of series 3 due to work and i love dancing on ice this will be added to my collection of dancing on ice and torvil and dean dvds cant wait till it is relaised.

cracking entertainment

My eighteen-month-old loves this, as it is set in the outdoors with animals, some singing, some speaking and different characters. Great value and the best children's DVD for her age we have come across. Is tolerable for adults as well....!

Forever Young

Thanks to Martin Scorsese and the ability of film to capture and preserve a moment in time forever, we can dance"The Last Waltz" over and over again. And we never really have to say a final farewell to The Band.

Yes, Scorsese was there. And lucky for us, he made sure that not one, but seven, of the era's best cinematographers were also there working right alongside him, their cameras trained on different areas and angles of the stage so as not to miss a single, magical moment of that night so long ago.

It was a night when the likes of Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Van Morrison, Dr. John, Paul Butterfield, Ringo Starr, Ron Wood, and Ronnie Hawkins took turns sharing the stage with their gracious, modest hosts, the five"fellas" in The Band. And a night when every single one of those beautiful voices joined forces at the end to perform an achingly mournful, beautiful version of The Band classic,"I Shall Be Released."

A fitting end to a concert which, in retrospect, seemed to mark the ending of an era in rock 'n' roll, the passing of the old guard in a sense. Even though many of these people continued to make music for many years--are still making music in some cases, in fact--the magnitude, the collective impact of all those voices of that '60s generation, has just never been duplicated.

If Scorsese and his crack team hadn't captured the concert on warm, cinematic, 35mm film (the first rock concert to be filmed this way, with even Woodstock having been filmed in 16mm), it would now be just a magical memory in the minds of the lucky few thousand who were there that night. And most of those memories would be from the perspective of the majority who witnessed the concert from deep in the crowd, many rows back from and well below the stage.

But because The Band and Scorsese had the sense to get this thing on film, it's now an experience open to millions for generations to come. Anyone can go back there--right onto that stage--at any time, and relive the phenomenal music, the era, the mood of intensified camaraderie between The Band members and their distinguished guests, whenever they pop in the DVD.

I recently took my second whirl around the dance floor with this sublime movie. I'd first seen it back in 1978, when it was first released in theaters. I knew then that I'd witnessed greatness, and continued to talk up the pleasures of this movie to friends and family over the next couple of decades.

I remembered the music knocking my socks off, remembered how The Staples Singers made my heart and soul soar high above where my body was still firmly entrenched in my seat with their joyful noise during"The Weight." (On the DVD commentary, Mavis Staples shares that Band members Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm had instructed her to"take it to church" near the end of her ecstatic vocalizing.) And I remembered that Van Morrison did a killer version of"Caravan" (complete with a garish, glittery '70s"rock-star" costume...well, more like something a Barnum & Bailey's Circus performer might wear, actually).

I wanted badly to share all this joyful music with my husband, who loves rock `n` roll as much as I do, but who`d somehow managed to go his whole life without seeing this movie. I searched my local video stores in vain for it a few years back. It was kind of hard to get ahold of for awhile there, before the newly remastered version was released in 2002. They just didn't have it in stock. So I gave up on seeing it again for awhile.

Besides, I thought, I'm probably just building it up in my memory. I'm sure I'll be disappointed when I finally see it again. Probably won't be as great and magical as I remember it.

Well, I've finally seen it again, and you know what? It's even better than I remembered it, so much better. And now I know the"secret" that isn't really a secret at all, one that people older than me have known as an obvious fact for many years: The Band was one of the greatest rock `n' roll bands of all time.

As you watch them expertly wield their many instruments--not just the standard rock 'n' roll triumvirate of guitars, bass, and drums, but also some instruments you might associate more with bluegrass or even jazz musicians than rockers, instruments like fiddles, mandolins, stand-up bass, clavinets, accordions, saxophones, and so on--you quickly realize that they were one of the most brilliant, versatile groups of musicians you could ever hope to assemble.

And another thing that hits you almost as soon as they take the stage is that these guys had as much unforced charisma, charm, likeability and sexual magnetism as the Beatles in their heyday.

(Any woman who can watch Danko pour his heart and soul into his anguished, mesmerizing performance of"It Makes No Difference" in this movie and not feel the earth move is a much stronger woman than I. He is young, manly beauty and masculine vulnerability personified here. His riveting performance of"Stage Fright"--with a noticeable tremble in his voice and the words sometimes catching in his throat, as if he really is scared to death to be up there in that spotlight--had the same effect on me.)

Part of the appeal of the entire Band in this movie is their modest, unassuming quality. They seem just as happy when they're playing in the shadows, out of the spotlight (maybe even more so), as they are when they're taking center stage. I guess that comes from all those years on the road as a backing band for other lead singers--first Ronnie Hawkins and then, legendarily, Bob Dylan.

Even after bringing down the house with a particularly impassioned lead vocal or guitar solo, they quietly resume being just one of the boys in the band, maybe acknowledging the audience's loud cheering with just a slight smile or nod of the head.

Not that they were awkward front men. Rick Danko could easily and confidently step into the spotlight and command the entire hall with his beautiful, high tenor, that famously wracked, twisted and tortured way he had of delivering a song. That's just what he does during"Stage Fright," for example. And Robbie Robertson would occasionally allow himself a flashy, head-thrown-back flourish on his guitar.

But it was all done so modestly, almost reluctantly, as if they were saying to their audience, I've got this great lyric or passionate guitar lick that I've just got to share with you, and then I'll get back to the sidelines and let the other guys have their turn to shine. None of the five Band members ever seemed to see themselves as anything more than"just one of the guys."

During their farewell concert, those years of playing"second fiddle" to others serve The Band very well and make them come across as very gracious hosts. Though they rock hard and play amazing versions of their own songs, they're clearly enjoying themselves just as much when they're serving as the world's most famous and best backup band to their distinguished guests, singing backing vocals for Neil Young during"Helpless," or for Dr. John during"Such a Night," for instance. Clearly this was a line-up of equals, with no one ever trying to hog the spotlight.

Today's many uber-vain, desperate-for-all-the-attention-they-can-get performers--always trying to out-bling each other in the case of lots of the guys, or reveal even more flesh than their female rivals in the case of the gals--could learn a thing or two from their gracious elders. Emmylou Harris and Joni Mitchell never looked more beautiful--like two hippie goddesses--than they did in this movie. Yet they managed to do it while fully clothed--in a floor-length gown in Harris's case!

All this restraint was even a nice change from a lot of what was going on in rock back then. So many bands were into the preening, strutting, rockstar stuff onstage. It was all part of the fun and the image, of course. But that a band like The Band could rock out so well without resorting to all the wild costumes and histrionics was pretty amazing.

Therefore--unlike so many of the flashier, more ostentatious bands from that era--the five guys in The Band have absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. There was none of that showboating, swaggering stuff for them. Not that they didn't love to rock out and get in a hard, often funky groove with their music. They did that just as well as (probably better than) anybody else around back then. Still, they always conducted themselves with dignity onstage. Not pomposity or aloofness, mind you. Just...dignity.

They wanted the focus to be on the music rather than them; they thought the music should speak for itself. They seemed to possess an innate sense that nothing could kill a great song like the whiff of desperation in a performance. They didn't feel a need to sell their songs, to shove them down their audience's throat, by indulging in long-winded solos, blinding, distracting lightshows, or flashy, ridiculous costumes.

Though my recent second viewing of"The Last Waltz" made me appreciate The Band and its contributions to music more than ever, that's not to say that I didn't like their music or have any clue of their greatness before then.

Like most people my age and older, I grew up hearing Band standards like"The Weight,""Up on Cripple Creek,""Stage Fright,""Ophelia," etc. on the radio. And I've long regarded"It Makes No Difference" as one of the most beautiful, aching love songs ever written or sung. But I think I was just too young to fully appreciate their amazing virtuosity as musicians, the delightful interplay of their traded vocals and harmony singing, and connect with their music in that deep, cosmic way back then.

This second viewing of their farewell movie was the bolt of lightning that awakened me to what I've been missing all these years.

Suddenly I realized the brilliance of songs I'd come to take for granted, songs I`d heard all my life but hadn`t really"heard," if you know what I mean. Ah, the hazards of classic rock or"oldies" stations. They can make truly great songs come to sound like mere background noise after you`ve heard them for the thousandth time.

The way Scorsese had the song"Stage Fright" lit and shot, for instance, from the perspective of the singer, Danko, all alone and illuminated on the darkened stage by a single spotlight, looking out over the huge audience. He put us in the position to really feel that stage fright, to fully understand those lyrics,"He got caught in the spotlight." And then the beauty of these lines:"For the price that the poor boy paid, he gets to sing just like a bird." After which Danko closes his eyes and does just that, letting escape a spontaneous, exuberant"Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" Beautiful!

I've heard it said that you have to see The Band live to fully appreciate them, and now I know exactly what that means. So Scorsese has given those of us who never had that good fortune the next best thing: by filming them live--and on such a glorious night as this, their farewell concert--he's left movie audiences with this great gift of being able to discover, even 30 years down the road, the immense power of The Band.

The versions of their songs that they perform in this movie are like the ultimate, ideal, heightened versions. The fact that this was their big farewell concert probably had a lot to do with that. They knew they were playing these songs together for probably the last time. So they sang and played their hearts out. They gave us the best versions of these songs that we could ever hope to hear.

When Levon Helm belts out"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," you hear it fully as the weeping, wailing funeral dirge for the old South that it's meant to be. It's like the sky is crying. He is singing for every Southerner who lost a son, husband, or father, or a way of life, to that war. Thanks to the beauty and intelligence of Robertson's lyrics, Helm's (and Danko's and Manuel's backing him on the choruses) impassioned singing and playing, the regimental sound of the drums, the magnificent horn section, we get the tremendously sad sense of a world falling apart.

This is haunting, timeless music for the ages. I'm so thankful that Martin Scorsese had the talent to use this music to make a haunting, timeless movie for the ages.

Yes, The Band is long gone, and some of its members have left the stage forever. But the rock 'n' roll they and their guests created that night so long ago will never die.

Joe Strummer, The Man.

Julien Temple's biography of Joe Strummer,"The Future Is Unwritten", brilliantly captures the labyrinth that was Joe Strummer while reminding us that every stage of Joe's evolution - born John Graham Mellor, to the communal 'Woody' Mellor, to Joe Strummer - was part of Joe's constant struggle to define himself while concomitantly asserting his basic humanity.

"The Future Is Unwritten" provides us with a glimpse into all that comprised Joe Strummer: Joe's rootless childhood with a distant father and troubled brother, Joe's embrace of the communal lifestyle that would follow him throughout his life, Joe's ascent into rock stardom beginning with the 101'ers and then The Clash, Joe's ultimate disillusionment with rock stardom, his wilderness years, followed by Joe's embrace of his entire legacy and the peace at which he arrived in his final years.

The film does not engage in hagiography, however. We see all that comprised Joe Strummer the man including his flaws. Joe admits as much in the multitude of observations from the man himself that are interspersed throughout the film.

In the end, Julien Temple's film captures the life of Joe Strummer with a mood and feeling evocative of one of Joe's beloved campfires, so much so that by the end you feel that you actually are there in some way. I walked away from this film with the reaffirmation of Joe's very accessible genius: through his music Joe wanted to touch humanity in some way while attempting to transcend humanity at the same time.

Joe remains very much missed. Julien Temple's film reminds us why.

Five stars.

A piece of history

Everyone has their own ideas about Woodstock: the high-point of a golden age of optimism, a chaotic, badly organized mess, an uneven mixture of performers and performances, a clash between the conservative townspeople and a vast invasion of hippies, a religious experience... the list goes on. This movie does an excellent job at capturing all these aspects (and others) of the event, sometimes using multiple images to represent more than one of them simultaneously. The intermingling of the performances with other scenes creates a well-rounded picture, and makes this much more than just a concert film. Sometimes the juxtaposition is magical - one of my favourite moments is, while one camera is showing Carlos Santana as he grimaces his way through a characteristically melodic guitar solo, another is focussed on a girl in the audience as she responds to - it seems - each and every note.

There are other buried treasures in here as well - for example, I'd never realised how beautiful Grace Slick was (probably because I'd heard so many tales about her unpleasant personality) or, for that matter, how much Janis Joplin reminded me of Ozzy Osbourne in his earlier days. To be sure, some of the music is more dispensible than others (and some of the performances have clearly been cleaned up - or completely overdubbed - after the event): I could never see the point of Sha Na Na, and I still find myself nodding off during Ten Years After's"Going Home" (sure, Alvin Lee's a fantastic guitarist, but he seems to spend 90% of the song not playing it). But they're more than made up for by the magic: Country Joe getting the crowd on its feet with his impromptu"Fixin' To Die Rag", Pete Townshend swaggering through"Summertime Blues", Joe Cocker's catarthic"Little Help From My Friends" and Hendrix's appearance right at the end, as if just descended from a spacecraft:"I see that we meet again, hmmmm...".

Pure Gold

This is the rhird and easily the best Neil Young concert D.V.D. I have bought. The audio-visual quality is superb, as are the performances. I loved all the tracks, except for 'Prairie Wind,' which I found boring and repetitive. The balance between the new songs and his golden oldies is spot on and I would reccomend it to all Neil Young fans.

Excellent

Another great Tull DVD, keep them coming. You get 42 minutes of concert footage from 1982, coincidentally just over 2 weeks after I saw them live the first time at Wembley. Good to see the still shaggy haired Anderson and Martin Barre at an intermediate stage of his transformation, strutting their stuff. I needed to go to the reference books to work out exactly when and where these were filmed, info I would have liked to have seen in the notes. There is more live footage from 1986 and a tv set in 1993; some of my favourite tracks - Hunting Girl, Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die, Black Sunday, before the Beat Club footage at the end including John Evan's superb Pathetique piano solo, and a strange, warts-and-all performance of Nothing Is Easy.

Get ready for some serious tears!

Whether you like it or not, you will be in tears with this film. Fantastic story, wonderful music, magic scenery, great Opera Singers/Actors! You cannot go wrong with this film whether you like Opera or not.

BLU RAY VERSION SAVE YOUR MONEY

HI I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS BLU RAY DISC AND WAS LET DOWN .IT IS TWICE THE PRICE OF THE STANDARD DVD AND THERES NO POP UP MENUS AND PICTURE
QUAILTY IS NOT VERY GOOD A LOT OF THE TIME .I THINK IT WAS RUSHED OUT FOR CHRISTMAS SO IF YOUR A FAN SAVE YOUR MONEY AND BUY STANDARD DVD.

Scorsese's Dylan

Martin Scorsese's film No Direction Home, which I watched last night, provided an absorbing three and a half hours of insight into Bob Dylan's early life and his emergence into prominence and controversy in the mid sixties. I mention the duration of the movie because I can rarely sit and watch for so long without my attention wandering. Not in this film. Before remarking on the content of the film, it is worth considering Scorsese's direction. I recommend this film to anyone interested in watching or in making documentary film. The way in which archival material, concert footage and interview segments are integrated and paced is masterly. The film really tells a story and creates an atmosphere: I felt as though I was there. Scorsese's experience in making feature films has enriched his direction of this film. Although comparisons are silly, it may be his best film. It sent me back to The Last Waltz for comparison of his method.

The film's most valuable asset is Dylan's own recounting of his past, and the most striking point about it is how much interview time in Dylan's early years was wasted in asking often trite questions of this most intuitive mind. He rarely answered them, and often could only express his irritation of the questioner. Scorsese's film of the contemporary Dylan rarely presents the questions, content to record what he has to say. Hibbing, Minnesota is stripped bare. Even Dylan's evasiveness, when dealing with his more questionable behaviour to friends and colleagues, is revealing. There is a conflict between Scorsese's intention to make a coherent narrative and Dylan's lifelong habit of crossing borders and categories, throwing dust on his trail and refusing to be pigeonholed that adds an interesting tension to the viewing.

The main thrust of Scorsese's film is the impact of Dylan's crossover to electric instrumental accompaniment. Listeners then had become divided into self perceived groups, the folk 'purist', social conscience type and the mindless consumers of pop pap who just enjoyed the music, and Dylan outraged everyone by moving between these groups freely. His motives were neither pure nor particularly self aware. From the perspective of our own times the differences between these types of music seem less extreme: both were commercial entertainment; listening to a protest song was often a substitute for more committed action. Yet at the time the difference was important to those who were there. From the conflict that ensured, the boos and the cries of traitor, there would emerge something new in pop culture, the pop music artist, and Scorsese doesn't let us forget it. One disadvantage to this emphasis is that it focuses on the same period and phenomenon as Pennebaker's Don't Look Back, which is even quoted in Scorsese's film. The Pennebaker film (a masterpiece) has been available on DVD for some time, and most watchers of No Direction Home would be familiar with it (note the similar inspiration between the two titles).

The film reveals Dylan's background, and then moves on to an overview of the music he grew up listening to, from Hank Williams to Muddy Waters, fascinating to those interested in developments in popular music. The society of Dylan's youth is sketched in vividly: Cold War, Greenwich Village, the folk music scene, the civil rights movement, the birth of folk-rock. The controversy over Dylan's move to electric instruments in the mid 60s is shown through concert footage. We see the Dylan who found, used and then dropped Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez and many others. One comment, that Dylan was like a sponge, reminded me of a similar comment about George Gershwin, who absorbed, or 'stole' elements from all the popular cultures of his time. But transformed them. This was the Dylan who became, unexpectedly, a pop star, who poured out a stream of literate, introspective pop lyrics which made pop culture 'respectable' to the intellectuals and had a transforming effect on the way popular music was presented by other artists. In a way Dylan could be said to have re-invented pop music in this period.

So, everyone has his Dylan. In the 60s Dylan was for some The Genius; for others he was The Poet; for others again he was The Traitor. These are all projections of our own that tell us what we are looking for. No wonder Dylan dodged like crazy. Today if you become a star you deal with it by making it a persona, or you self destruct by taking it all seriously. Dylan survived because he had many personas. This film is Scorsese's Dylan. We'll never know Dylan's Dylan.

Scorsese's film covers the period 1941 to 1968, when Dylan suffered injuries in a motor cycle accident when he was about 26 years old. Therefore the film does not deal with a lot of important things about Dylan: his marriage and family; his influence on popular music, especially on the Beatles; the literary value of his song lyrics and his stature as probably the greatest of popular song writers; his use, even quite late in his career, of traditional melodies (which is common folk practice); the creation of country rock; the disintegration and self healing recorded on Blood on the Tracks; his various religious affiliations; and his non musical activities such as paintings and novels. If anyone reading this knows Martin Scorsese would they ask if a second film is going to be made covering this material? Probably the elusive Dylan would consider it too defining and completing a study to be made in his lifetime, but you can only ask.

Ok - but could easily have been a single quality disc

I like blues too much to spend any time slagging it off so i am just going to focus on the good bits - and they are good - disc one must hear Susan Tedeschi with Dereck Trucks Band - the next Bonny Rait an amazing performance - sadly there are a few other ok tracks notably the Albert Lee and John McLaughlin bits but the rest is really dull (my all time hero Johnny Winter no!!!!); second disc Clapton steps, up great stuff with Tell the Truth, exceptional performances with Steve Winwood and Los Lobos and Buddy Guy is always worth seeing. So in the end maybe 5 to six really good performances and the rest is just filler in my humble opinion. There was not enough variety on this dvd - compared with 2 years before - which i would rate as a 5/5 compulsory ownership if you loved the first crossroads then you may like the second one - but given its for charity - you should buy it anyway just for the performances outlined above and help heal those in need.

The sound track is mono, the original was stereo

Disapointed, I have seen this movie lately on a VHS video, the soundtrack was true stereo. The soundtrack here is digital restored from a mono source, and it sounds strange - very strange !! Miramax has really messed up this.
The original movie with true stereo is a 5 star thing!

Come Back to the Cove.....

Dante's Cove series two kicks off exactly where the last series left off. Toby has been left for dead by Ambrosius, who is still pursuing Kevin and has Cory under his power. However, it soon becomes clear that Ambrosius' plan has failed and that the two lovers are still very much together.

Grace returns to torment Ambrosius more, as well as the mysterious Diana, who seems to know both of them very well. Van begins dabbling in the work of Tresum and then encounters Grace for herself, Ambrosius gets a makeover and helps Adam discover his true sexuality while Toby and Kevin try and maintain their relationship despite the interference of others.

Van's girlfriend Michelle is introduced to the series and as Van gets more and more involved, she accidentally puts a spell on Michelle that makes her forget everything about Van. It soon becomes clear that Diana has an ulterior motive for being at the Cove and is connected to Grace in a stronger way than first thought.

The series ultimately builds up to the dramatic finale at the Solstice, where Grace and Ambrosius face off to claim ultimate power over Dante's Cove. The lives of the characters will never be the same again if Grace's freezing of the land because of her pain continues or if Ambrosius manages to free the Cove from Grace's pain and rage.

Dante's Cove returns in this 2-disc DVD set, this time featuring five episodes instead of two and with many more characters and much more plot. There are still plenty of hot, sweaty sex scenes but this time around there are even more supernatural goings on as well, along with solid characterisation and twists and turns.

If you enjoyed the first series, then you will love this too. It is more of the same, with a bigger cast, a bigger budget and even more juicy episodes.

Sheer Ballet Magic!

Absolute magic! I saw this as a child and it inspired me into career of dance. As a child, I adored to watch it and try to imitate the characters. Frederick Ashton's choreoegraphy brings the animals to life with imagination and fun. In the early 70's The Royal Ballet was in it's glory days with dancers like beautiful Leslie Collier, Wayne Sleep and Michael Coleman: who's Pas De Chat-ing Jeremy Fisher I'll never forget, dancers filled with style, creativeness and that tremendous RB technique. This is a joy, something to have on the shelf for any ballet fan or budding ballerina. Enjoy!