SONG OF SCHEHERAZADE

The first ´official´ Renaissance DVD! I was always amazed by the fact that a band of such importance and fame did not have a single video available in the market all these years. Ok, there were some bootlegs you could find, but usually they were either of awful quality or didn´t feature the classic line up of the 70´s we all wanted to see. I´ve wondered if they ever had filmed their Live At Carnegie Hall concert in 1977...So I was quite happy to know that Song Of Scheherazade was planning for release, even if, burned with previous experience, I was a bit aware of how it would turn out. Was it good?

To make matters worse the first copies were defective, with Annie Haslam´s voice not really in sync with the images. Incredibly, one of those came into my hands and I had some trouble getting a new one. After all this hassle, the resulting DVD is really worth it? Well, the answer is both a yes and a no. Yes, because it is really Renaissance classic line up we all love: Annie Haslam (vocals), John Tout (keyboards), Jon Camp (bass, vocals), Terry Sullivan (drums) and Michael Dunford (guitars). the repertoire is also fantastic: over two hours of live music recorded during a couple of shows, one in 1976 and the other in 1979. Unfortunately the ´no´ part relies on the quality of the the video itself. First of all, it all shot in black & white, believe it or not. Second, the sound quality is far from perfect (although not nearly as atrocious as some bootlegs I´ve have seen of them).

Being a big fan of the band I went on and dug inside: the two shows are excellent. The former is of course the best one since it includes a stronger setlist with fine performances of classics like Mother Russia, Running Hard and practically the whole Scheherazade suite. The second concert´s repertoire relies mostly on their weak (compared to their previous ones, of course) Azzure D´or album, which, surprisingly, work better on stage than on the studio. And a good version of Song For All Seasons also appears. Camera angles and shots of the band members are good, but clearly nothing like today´s multi camera angles and stuff like that, but, after all, those were the 70´s and good filming of rock concerts were the exception, not the rule.

So, in the end was it worth it? to me it was, since it is still classic Renaissance. If it was at least shot in color, I´d give it a four star rating. The sound quality is only ok, but certainly a big improvement over the ones I´ve seen before. While I´m still waiting them to release Live At Carnegie Hall, this one will have to satisfy my need (and others) to see them live. I´d give it 4,5 stars for the song selection (but the lack of a whole Can You Understand is unforgivable) , 2,5 stars for the sound and 2 stars for the images. So a 3 star rating is fair enough.