 |
 Song of the weekEach week we showcase a classic track as Song of the Week. Check the current and past choices. Tom Jones covers Leonard Cohen's Tower Of SongCheck out Sir Tom Jones' brand new video for "Tower of Song," which will be the opening track on his forthcoming album "Spirit In The Room". A Whole Lotta Jerry Lee Lewis - The Definitive Retrospective - reviewSalvo's new four-CD Jerry Lee Lewis box set provides an excellent overview of the singer's finest studio work. Janis Joplin - The Pearl SessionsThe two-disc "Janis Joplin - The Pearl Sessions" features Joplin's classic "Pearl" album and premieres newly discovered studio recordings. Springsteen releases Death To My Hometown videoCheck out the new music video for Bruce Springsteen's "Death To My Hometown." CompetitionsEnter prize draws for the chance to win concert tickets, CDs, DVDs, cash, the latest gadgets, holidays and more. Before they were famous - high school yearbook photosSee if you can identify these stars before they were famous. |
Beatles Come To Town – DVD
Taken mainly from the Pathe online archives, this release offers much never seen before footage and unused scenes – along with unused camera angles. Seemingly all versions of the Beatles Come To Town documentary that have survived over the years are included: You have a choice of a “rough edit,” “broadcast version,” “b&W work print”, “35mm,” and “70mm” versions. All are fair to good quality.
Nothing is truly better than what we’ve had unless we get something from the negative. The unused footage consists mainly of audience shots and scenes with the fans. Not terribly exciting. Watching individual camera angles of the Beatles perform live is the real treat here.
The DVD does suffer from having low resolution and shows the hallmarks of the source being the internet. It doesn’t look that good on a computer screen; though luckily this is a treasure trove of material. I was certainly hoping for better quality from the Pathe archives. I know there was a FAB release of this material, but it includes other superfluous material that is irrelevant to this documentary (such as interviews, the Beatles arrival at airports, Empire Theater performance, Royal Variety Show, etc.) Sometimes I’m not in need of a disc being overloaded just to fill it out. I prefer this Misterclaudel release for being specific to the documentary – though much of it is duplicated time and time again throughout the DVD.
The one item I truly find annoying is the multi-angle versions that can include (for instance) up to three camera angels shown separately in the same frame. It’s a great tool if I were using each camera’s footage to do my own edit of the song. But it’s distracting to watch and filler. I also didn’t like some silent footage (on the early chapters of the DVD) have overdubbed Beatles songs from the commercial CDs. Preferably, I’d rather have had them use the live audio from the songs performed live here, at the ABC Cinema in Manchester.
Is it highly recommended? I’d say not. Begrudgingly, I recommend this release only because it includes new footage and the release is specific only to the Beatles Come To Town.
Misterclaudel – MCDVD 25
Reviewer: Howard Fox (aka Beatle Bob)
