Emerson, Lake & Palmer Album: “Birth of a Band: Isle of Wight Festival [DVD]”

The first review by Mark is accurate.The only thing that saves this is the Carl Palmer drum solo.I thought this was going to be like Jethro Tull's Nothing is Easy DVD from the Isle of Wight (which is excellent). It's not.When they showed power boats racing to ELP's music I had to laugh. This is so insane it's funny.Very disappointing overall.If they did show you the actual footage from the whole concert this would be AWESOME.I'm sorry to say it isn't.All you get is about 10 or 15 minutes of actual footage.Whoever made this should be ashamed of themselves.I gave it 2 stars because I love Emerson ,Lake and Palmer.Go for'Master's from the Vault's 'instead.

Theres around 5% of the video footage from the concert used for this DVD. I don't know if they did this because they didn't have the rest or theres a legal matter? You might as well buy the CD because it has almost the same amount of video on it.

I just got this set yesterday and watched the DVD last night. The cd/dvd dual disc has both the dvd on one side and just the music on the other. A friend of mine won both the dvd and the dual disc from a local radio station. He decided to keep the dual disc and give me the dvd!

I haven't heard the music by itself yet but I can speak for the DVD portion. It was amazing. It was the year after Woodstock and many amazing bands were there. It's still the largest concert in history. And the line-up was amazing! Back then they didn't have video so they used film to capture the moment. What you hear on the cd is just the 4 songs and none of the interviews and footage from the festival. This is the first thing my friend heard. He's actually the guy who got me into ELP back in the early 90's. We saw them live at Sunken Garden in San Antonio, TX in 1993. The show remains the best live show I've ever seen and I've seen many many many live shows.

This is the first time the world became aware of ELP. It was THIS 4 songs that made the impression. Two songs are long, one about 24 minutes, the other about 11 minutes. Then there are two shorter songs: one about 4 1/2 minutes and the other about 2 1/2 minutes. You get Pictures At An Exhibition before it ever makes it it's first cd two years later. They refine that songs quite a bit for "Pictures At An Exhibition" (Live album) in 1972. They add an amazing classical solo in the middle by Greg Lake. But this version is just as amazing and the really neat part is witnessing a song in progress.

There are some complaints about the DVD not being just concert footage alone. People can be very negative regarding this but I saw an ELP that I'd never seen before! I saw plenty of live footage of them on stage. I saw what they looked like back then in 1970 more than anything. And how they played. There was no shortage of enjoyment in that area. Sure, this could've been a 90 minute or 2 hour show but this was Isle of Wight and no one got that much time on stage. You know the festival length don't you? About 40 to 60 minutes per band except for the headliner. No one knew who ELP was at this show but they knew by the end of their set! And then the world knew.

Me? I think this is very to the point in 67 minutes on DVD and 41:46 for the cd. Woodstock is a great DVD but it's very long. This seems to be a first effort edition. Even Woodstock was released in a more elongated edition later on. But this is just ELP's set. So it's no different than Jimi Hendrix's set from Woodstock. Just that band and nothing else.

Maybe people need to stop expecting so much out of things. I find that if I expect too much I don't enjoy what is there. When I go in like a blank page with no expectations, I'm often pleasantly surprised. Yes, I'd love to see/hear any complete concerts by this band but I think The Birth of A Band - Isle of Wight Festival Saturday, August 29, 1970 was a great document of who the band was back then AND who the fans were going to their shows. A nice treat. I really enjoyed it.

The long and short of it is, this is another rip off where the name of the band hooks you into buying the product. The audio and video aren't always in sync (or from the same source) . It's great if you were there, as they offer lots of audience shots, video from the local boat races, passengers getting off the ferry and locals. I paid 5 bucks for it where I got it and it's worth that, but don't expect real documentary stuff.

There's some interesting stuff from ELP done probably in 2004 or 2005 talking about the Isle of Wight gig along with some of their usual spiels. But if you're looking for Emerson doing some serious Moog tinkering in 1970, you can forget it. It's not here at all. Just Palmer's complete solo and a little of Emerson throwing around his "beat around Hammond L-100". The rest is cutting floor footage from the audience and slo-mo/stop video of the band where it doesn't match by any means to the music. And what was with Lake's ears that night? Couldn't he tell his bass was way out of tune? It was so bad in some parts is actually messed with his singing. You've got Emerson and Palmer who are perfectionists and there's Lake who's too lazy to reach up to the head and give the string tension a quarter turn to put his A and E strings in tune. I don't know. If you're a serious collector, by all means get this. But if you're not better off looking for something else.