STRAWBS LIVE IN TOKYO '75 / GRAVE NEW WORLD THE MOVIE

In the Seventies The STRAWBS were an interesting progressive band. Their music was a blend of folk, rock and symphonic (in the vein of THE MOODY BLUES and BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST), topped by the distinctive vocals from Dave Cousins. Rick WAKEMAN was in the early line-up but he had a minor role. After he left to join YES the band, how ironically, blossemed and made some captivating progrock albums. The driving force behind the band was (and is, recently they re-united and even made a live-DVD) singer/guitarist Dave Cousins, a kind of progrock answer to DONOVAN or Bob DYLAN. This DVD showcases their unique progrock in their artistic and commercial heyday (the albums "Hero and Heroine" and "Ghosts" sold well). The first part of this DVD is a concert in Tokyo from 1975 (running time 40 minutes). It shows an inspired band that plays songs like "Lemon Pie", "You and I, when we were young", "New World", "Hero and Heroine", "Just Love" (straight rock with fiery guitarwork from Dave Lambert) and the highlight "Down By The Sea" (compelling twanging electric and majestic choir-Mellotron waves). The bass player was Chas Cronk, later he joined The STEVE HACKETT BAND.

The second part includes the movie "Grave New World" (from 1972, almost 30 minutes), featuring the songs from that album, all visually embellished by a 'video-clip'. The result ranges from impressive (the gospel-like "Benedictus" and the bombastic "Tomorrow") to funny ("The Flower And The Young Man" and "Ah Me, Ah My"). I my opinion this movie has an undertone of typical British humor, not everybody's cup of tea! The last part is a special bonus (10 minutes): Rick WAKEMAN's television debut in the song "Til The Sun Comes Shining Through" (he already shows his sparkling piano-play), an interview with Dave Cousins on a lifeboat and a preview from the album "Wakeman and Cousins" with the song "The Young Pretender" (wonderful violinplay).

A good and comprehensive DVD that shows The STRAWBS at their best.

This DVD is a great treat for any Strawbs fan, albeit (very) far from perfect. it has enough features to satisfy most of the ones who never had a chance to see them either live or on tv (which, by the way, it is my case). First part shows the band playing live in 1975 in Tokyo. This is a "bittersweeet" affair, at least for me. The sweet part is the fact that Strawbs was featuring their most progressive line up and sound of their career at that point. The playing is great! The bitter part is the choice of songs (no prog epics like Ghosts or Autumn), the short playing time (only 40 minutes, and still they included a very dismissible drum solo? Oh, come on!!) and the sound quality (only average). Still it´s Strawbs best line up and the only available video around of them. I always wonder how they sounded live and I was not disappointed. Short, but great show!

Second part is at least equally as important. Featuring their second best line up, it is a long video clip made at the time for cinema playing. The band plays almost all the Grave New World album. It was an interesting idea and quite daring then. A novelty that was later copied by a number of bands, like ELO who did the same with their Discovery LP. Anyway, Grave New World was one of their very best albums and it is interesting so see them playing all those songs. The video technology was very limited at the time, but they did a quite good job and the film still holds your attention after more than 30 years.

The extras bring us some interesting features, like the band playing on TV in 1970 with their original band members, which included a very young Rick Wakeman on piano. Their sound was very much pure folk then, and it is amazing to see how they evolved since. Then we have the band doing an interview around the time they released the single Grace Darling from Ghosts. They are seen on a boat visiting the famous lighthouse they talk about on the song. Nice!

Finally there´s some studio shots recording the Hummingbird album (which reunited Dave Cousins and Rick Wakeman some two decades after they parted ways). Interesting.

This DVD may not have everything the fans want (well, which one does?), but it is a must have to any Strawbs fan, IMO. If you don´t know the band but like prog folk you should also see it, it´s worth it.

I had set out to write a review that would do justice to this variegated video, but I was only halfway through when it began resembling a graduate thesis, so I perhaps subconsciously hit whatever key combination I tend to hit every so often that makes everything I typed irreversibly disappear and sends me to another page. Why do they make keys like that...never mind.

So instead you get the Coles Notes version. This release is made up of 5 distinct parts, 2 of which form the basis for a DVD, 2 of which had obviously been kicking around for while waiting for a release to which they could be added, and one of which was to promote a new (at the time) album.

Chronologically, the features are...

A Granada Television spot from 1970 that was one of the group's last appearances as a trio, except it wasn't a trio because soon to be group member Rick Wakeman was guesting on keys in his first ever TV credit. This was probably not long before the band pulled up its folk by the roots and dropped them in acid just to make extra sure. They perform "Till The Sun Comes Shining Through" from "Dragonfly" and do it well, other than I have to wonder if the late Tony Hooper was always this wooden. I mean, he had been on stage for years by then.

Grave New World the movie. This early music video featuring Strawbs breakthrough album is riddled with flaws, is laughably lo tech, and is a weird synthesis of prog rock earnestness and Godspell psalms. The footage during "New World" is more over the top than the song, which takes some doing, "Ah Me Ah My" soft shoes directly into the music hall years before QUEEN attempted it. The young lady miming the non human protagonist in "The Flower and the Young Man" is certainly flexible and as mesmerizing as that old lava lamp in your dentist's office, but I'm guessing that, unless the last 50 years have been uneventful, she hasn't included this performance on even the long form version of her resume for at least 49 years. But in spite of all these and many more "what?" moments, it captures the historical context of the time better than the album or even a live performance could do. The ensemble performances of "Benedictus and "Tomorrow" mesh well with the touching scenes and flashbacks in "On Growing Older", and "Journey's End".

Just before "Ghosts" was released, the A&M issued "Grace Darling" as a Christmas single in England and ventured to the lighthouse where the real heroine of that name lived. The video captures bracing footage of the trip by sea and I got a chill just watching it. Shame the song did not chart as well as the lighthouse.

In a modest way, Strawbs had conquered North America, particularly Canada, by 1975, but they made a trip to Japan to promote themselves and "Ghosts". The live performance was apparently the first to be simulcast to all the major Japanese islands. It's only 40 minutes and a few are ill-spent on the drum solo that introduced "Hero and Heroine", thankfully in a blistering version, but it captures the spirit of the band's stage act at the time, with a pleasing mix of ballads like "You and I", epics like "Down by the Sea", and rockers like "Just Love".

Having resided in the 1970-1975 time frame for its first 4 acts, the finale is a video shot in 2002 at Rick Wakeman's studio during the recording of his collaboration with Dave Cousins called "Hummingbird". The duo and mad fiddling guest Ric Sanders look to be having fun and the song "The Young Pretender" is a winner which apparently went back decades but had never appeared on a Strawbs related album until then.

This multifaceted DVD would be worth the acquisition simply because it includes the only concert footage from Strawbs during their peak period, but the Grave New World video just adds to the enticements, and the extras are all as valuable both historically and musically as the group itself.