Rating: Summary: The Bee Gees Condensed Anthology Review: "The Official Story" DVD is a concise and well-documented Bee Gees biography, but it glosses over a few details concerning the departure of former guitarist Vince Melouney and drummer Colin Petersen.
The "One Night Only" DVD is of the Bee Gee's last live performances with songs from their entire career. Unfortunately, Barry was suffering from a back injury and you can see he's in a lot of pain. I could do without the "special performance" of Celine Dion.
Rating: Summary: Terrific concert ONE of the best dvd for collectible Review: As good as you can imagine of the best concert that you had ever seen of your life. If you are a fan of Bee Gees, this dvd set will be the great one that you shouldn't miss. There are 2 dvd that contain all information for all of Bee Gees' fans. One of them is a great concert in Las Vegas. The sound was recorded perfectly as digital quality. Finally, just Totally perfect dvds. You won't disappointed.
Rating: Summary: El Mejor material sobre Bee Gees en DVD Review: Este Box con 2 DVD exclusivo para coleccionistas reune todo. Por un lado el super recital One Night Only que el grupo realiza en el imponente marco del MGM de Las Vegas donde se conjugan buen gusto, detalles cuidados hasta la obsesión, excelente repertorio, muy buen sonido y la imagen que aparte de ser excelente no pierde detalles del evento porque existen una cantidad enorme de cámaras que no dejan perder nada. En el segundo DVD se halla la historia oficial del grupo y de cada uno de los integrantes desde los comienzos, contada por ellos mismos. Hasta la madre de los Bee Gees aparece tal cual está hoy en un reportaje exclusivo con ella. !!! IMPERDIBLE !!! Si Bee Gees es tu grupo, este es el producto que estabas esperando para completar tu colección.
Rating: Summary: Mislabeled Disks Review: Great content, as I remember it from the first time I saw part of the concert while traveling in Thailand. While the original copy of the One Night Only concert I saw in a bar may have been bootlegged, it inspired me to buy a copy with the "story." Surprisingly, the two cd's were mis-labeled. The concert was on the "story" CD, and the story was on the "One Night Only" CD. Both seem to work fine. Odd that a major publisher would screw up a small detail like this. Fortunately, not a bigger mistake!
Rating: Summary: Very Entertaining Review: I have never seen a double DVD quite like this - totally entertaining that I'll watch it again and again. But how, HOW, can the publisher screw up mis-labeling the two discs!!!
Rating: Summary: Fantastic Concert and Biography Review: I have never seen a double DVD quite like this - totally entertaining that I'll watch it again and again. But how, HOW, can the publisher screw up mis-labeling the two discs!!!
Rating: Summary: Songwriting 101 by the Brothers Gibb... Review: If you love the Bee Gees, you can't go wrong with picking this one up.
First the "One Night Only" DVD...
Filmed at the MGM Grand in Vegas and instead of doing a full-length tour at a time when they were writing a lot of songs, they decided to do one show in '97 promoting the "Still Waters" CD for TV and eventually for home video and CD. They used tapes of Frankie Valli and Andy Gibb's voices during a couple of the songs, and had an "unplugged" portion of the concert going through some of the older stuff as well as the songs they produced and wrote for Dionne Warwick, Kenny Rogers, and Barbra Streisand.
Celine Dion does a song with them, and isn't her usual over the top self.
The surround mix is decent, mostly used for crowd noise over music, the video itself is crisp, clear and brings out the stage lighting to nice effect. The concert DVD has an "extra" interview which seemed more in place with the other DVD. I think the "Live By Request" surround mix might be the better buy for the audiophile (which was 90 minutes of singing and anecdotes and more of an "informal" setting), but the crowd and brothers' energy in this setting and set was better.
The Bee Gees themselves sound in fine form, although Barry's falsettos seemed strained at times, even though he hit them. By the time he does "Stayin' Alive", it's almost 2 hours later, but that's minor nitpicking. The fact that they take pride in harmonizing live is evident. It's one you can have the TV on or off for and still enjoy either way.
The documentary covers most bases of their career from a skiffle trio to master singers, songwriters and performers, the good, the bad and the tacky, and includes a promo of "This is Where I Came In". The brothers, Robert Stigwood, George Martin, and others tell the tale of the Bee Gees, a lot of footage that hasn't been seen for the most part. The "extras" break down the interviews between the brothers, most of which isn't in the documentary itself. Maurice mentions that he would have loved to have had an Oscar for "Saturday Night Fever", which at that time wasn't even nominated. Face it, they cracked open the field for soundtracks that sell in the tens of millions nowaday.
They talk about sudden fame, reinventing their image, drugs, touring, family spats and bonding, breaking up and getting together, Andy Gibb, Sgt. Pepper, songwriting, the disco backlash and how they've managed to stay together and stay sane through 4 decades, not too different than the Beatles "Anthology" except the length of time is far shorter. Hardcore fans will think it being too glossed over, but people who have been fans for years will love it, esp. the early footage of when they were kids.
They also show that their humor was also a glue in keeping them together. They are notorious for having X-rated humor (they did grow up in some pretty rough neighborhoods and were delinquents themselves) which would have been funny to see on here, but I guess they wanted to avoid parental advisory stickers...
What I would love to see the Bee Gees put more of the archive footage out without narration over it. They have a major advantage of having done promo videos since the 60s up to 2001, TV appearances and having their concerts filmed. I think that with some editing, digging up the multitrack recordings, and digital mastering, it would be a treasure trove for fans old and young alike.
Also, if you haven't picked up "The Record", a 2 CD set of most of their hits, it should be next on your list. And then get "Birth of Brilliance" which compiles all their early stuff. And then get all their CDs, starting with "1st". Listening to it now, it is almost a shock that kids that age (they were pretty much the age Britney Spears was when she became popular) could write such songs, without one cover song on it, and were able to continue to making over 30 albums including solo projects and writing songs for others, almost all of which are worth picking up.
If you love harmonies, have an overall love of music, or an up and coming singer-songwriter, do yourself a favor,ignore the polyester suits forget about the disco era, start from the beginning and learn from the masters. It's a hell of a legacy they've left us.
Rating: Summary: Great DVD'S Review: The Bee Gees have released a two DVD set. Disc One is the story of The Bee Gees. Disc Two is the One Night Only concert. I don't have much of a say. Enjoy.
Rating: Summary: Fantastic 2-disc set Review: This is a fantastic 2-disc set and a must-have for all you Bee Gees fans out there. Apart from the terrific live concert, the biography itself is worth the price of the 2 discs. I've seen another biography "Keppel Road - The life and music of the Bee Gees" which is available as a region 2 DVD on the UK amazon site. But the "Official Story" beats it hands down in terms of richness of content and presentation. A few earlier reviewers have talked about the discs being mislabelled, but the discs I received were correctly labelled. So either those reviewers unfortunately received items from a bad batch or else the publishers have rectified the error. Anyway, go ahead and buy this 2-disc set - you'll be glad you did!
Rating: Summary: A Real Treat And An Historic Event! Review: This kind of combination of DVD's at this price is almost unheard of. You will pay more if you buy either just, "One Night Only" or "The Offical Story" separately. They are virtually the same discs. The Gibbs decided to release this special package as, obviously, with the terrible passing of Maurice Gibb, this is the last concert and last series of interviews about the famous siblings and their families.As the final Bee Gees DVD (officially) this set includes the entire MGM Grand concert from Las Vegas, Nevada (1997) and the brilliant 'life story' interviews of the Gibb family history from their humble beginnings in Manchester, England to the year 2001. If you ever wanted to really know what the three brothers are like, this is the most intimate interview they have ever done. To this day, they remain unjaded and still have the urge for that next big song or album. The overall atmosphere is upbeat and cheery. It's the kind of interview interspersed with film clips, song tracks and video. This is the ultimate Bee Gees keeper. Enjoy!
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