ROCK LEGENDS: PROGRESSIVE ROCK

I'm giving this seedy compilation DVD its first review, having ordered it recently at a very cheap price. I'm sure many of you are aware of Classic Rock company who have released loads of these low-price live DVD's. Two tracks here I've seen before on another of their prog compilations: 'Vivaldi' by CURVED AIR and 'The Weaver's Answer' by FAMILY, while some other tracks are probably taken from the same gigs as different songs on other compilations (and of course there are Classic Rock's DVD's of the represented artists separately, at least for most of them). RICK WAKEMAN's number here is 'Catherine Parr', ELP appear with vintage instrumental 'Barbarian', and FOCUS perform their excellent sidelong epic 'Eruption', albeit not the classic line-up featuring guitarist Jan Akkerman; nevertheless, this is among the highlights.

JOHN WETTON starts the 88-minute DVD in style with a faithful version of the King Crimson classic 'Starless'. After all the artists mentioned above comes BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST (a post-Wolstenholme line-up) and John Lees's 'Nights in White Satin' -imitating 'Poor Man's Moody Blues'. I do like it. STEVE HACKETT and his band perform instrumental 'Clocks' from Spectral Mornings (1979). Judged by Steve's looks I guess it's from the early 90's. The biggest minus of this DVD is the lack of more precise information on the performances. No years, no line-ups, not even song credits... What a pity, because a proghead like me would love to know especially the source years that vary from early 70's to - who knows, the 90's?

In my DVD collections there's the final part of VDGG's 'Plague of the Lighthouse Keepers' on the "Psychedelia" compilation (and it wasn't indicated on the cover as the finale only!); here is the George Martin instrumental 'Theme One'. No Peter Hammill in sight, but it's amusing to watch drummer Guy Evans and saxophonist David Jackson too. And premiering altogether in my DVD collections are SOFT MACHINE ('Tale of Taliesyn') and URIAH HEEP ('Paradise / The Spell'). I really would have wanted to know the exact line-ups for both! Anyway I'm glad of the latter's song choice: Demons and Wizards (1972) is my fave Heep album.

So, just another cheapie DVD with a varying quality of contents, but there surely are enough interesting numbers of prog classics to keep this on my shelves. 2½ stars rounded down for the lack of information.