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Rare footage?

DVD reviews:
John Hopkins

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This well-intended DVD has a few flaws.

One is the rather misleading blurb that it contains rare archival footage. While it does have a couple of minutes of a 1970 performance I hadn't seen before, nearly all consisted of material very familiar to DP fans. Of course the rest of the blurb - "Never before seen on DVD" - is true. But a great many of us have seen nearly all of it already, and for those who haven't and are looking at this disc strictly for the footage, I advise to wait. While the producers do let some of the clips go on for a bit, it's not enough, and plans have been made for official releases of the better or more complete films.

As to the "independent critical review" which is supposedly what the whole thing is for, well, that's not so hot either. For one thing, the albums reviewed - the Concerto through Who Do We Think We Are - aren't really reviewed at all. They've picked a few people, some with Purple ties, others varying from a session guitarist to a current member of Procul Harum, to comment on a few tunes from each, but as soon as they're done with In Rock it's clear we're only going to hear about songs for which they have footage. Thus, the 'review' of In Rock is limited to Speed King and Child In Time, with accompanying visuals from the Doing Their Thing (Granada TV, 1970) video.

This is the crippling thing about the whole package. Not only is the commentary limited to previously available concert footage, but we never hear the studio tracks which they're really talking about and which are what the overall rating of each album is based on. Thus, a comment about a bland studio track becoming a killer when performed on stage is never effectively illustrated. It's nice that they point that out, because we DP freaks have been saying the same thing for decades now, but with this limitation you basically have to take their word for it.

There's at least one more bit of fallout from this format, which is that according to the commentators every album, no matter it's star rating (on a scale of 1 to 5), is excellent, except for Who Do We Think We Are, which sucked except for the one song for which they have corresponding video. That may not be their intention, but it's how it comes across.

How was this decision made? Couldn't the other tracks have been covered, using stills, etc., for the visual component? You really don't get a good sense of the studio albums as a whole which is supposedly what 90% of this is about. Their musicianship, their remarkable stage performances, etc., are well gushed over, but the promised critical review never quite materializes.

To be fair, they did get a couple of things right. One was to have an entire chapter devoted to Purple's improvisational abilities, which was where the live clips were absolutely appropriate. Another was that they did round up a load of commentators who for the most part know what they're talking about and point out all the appropriate things that... well, we all pretty much know already.

But to give ratings to albums while ignoring more than half the material on them doesn't strike me as worth the bother of making this kind of package in the first place, much less trumpeting it as a 'critical review' which would seem to imply something more comprehensive.

Not recommended.

John Hopkins