I bought this DVD on-line for a really good price. I'm a big MB fan and thought it would be interesting to see/hear what they were like in the early days.
This concert was filmed in France in 1970 right around the time the album Question of Balance was released. I'm guessing this was filmed for French television.
I didn't have high hopes for the DVD simply because of the age of the recording and because I've been spoiled by recent releases with impeccable video and 5.1 sources.
The DVD is definitely a mixed bag. The performance was in a small club that couldn't hold more than a couple of hundred people. As expected the quality of the video and sound are mediocre.
The worst parts: About 5 or 6 of the songs were either lip-synced or over-dubbed with the studio recordings. It's obvious and bad. The editing and camera work are atrocious. If I had a 12 year old boy, he could have done a better job. There are way too many shots of the band from the back of the stage and too many close-ups of amplifiers - and not just during the instrumental parts - it's during the singing and even solo's. Just no freakin excuse, because there were obviously 3-4 cameras in the venue. Oh, and take the 5.1 audio that's on the packaging with a grain of salt.
The best parts: Their performance is outstanding on the numbers they actually perform (probably 60%-70% of the tracks). Their voices and instruments sound amazingly good (despite the mediocre audio quality, remember). Mike Pinder's mellotron certainly added a richness to their live performances. They sound like a band at the top of their game. Oh, and the members look SO young - I guess they had to have been in their early- to mid-20's.
I would only recommend this DVD to fans of the band. Too bad about the camera choices and editing - this would have been a worthwhile DVD otherwise. If you're a fan you will enjoy it for a handful of the songs and to see the band as youngsters. You will be annoyed when you expect/want to see a singer sing or a guitar solo, but you're not seeing it.
