Rating: 
Summary: The end of the innocence
Review: This is a fantastic look at the early Floyd, right before they became the musical juggernaut that defined them for the rest of their career. This is the band as they were refining their musical prowess with the turning point track "Echoes", from their forthcoming album "Meddle" at the time of filming the live sequences that encompass this opus. This track paved the way for their musical direction from then on. It also focuses on the recording of the "Dark Side Of The Moon" album which would change them forever and eventually lead the way to their disillusion and disintegration. But here, the band is still happy with the direction they are heading and everyone is on the same page musically. It is interesting to see the naivete of the band in the interview sequences of the band in the Abbey Road Studios canteen while recording "Dark Side", especially in anticipating their future. Little did they know that things were about to change for better and worse. This film is the last glimpse of the innocent, little cult band that was about to change the musical landscape of the world.
Rating:
Summary: ULTIMATE EARLY PINK FLOYD!!
Review: This was my first visual experience of PINK FLOYD, I saw it at the midnight movie around 1978. I've been a Floyd fan since 1973 when I heard The Dark Side of the Moon for the first time.
The VHS version was released in 1984,and I had to have it.
I am now waiting patiently to purchace the DVD when it is released.
The setting is the ancient ruins of a Pompeiian amphitheater in the Mediteranian Sea,recorded LIVE (no overdubs!) and is an excellent revelation of the Floyd's musical expertise and precision. It is a haunting setting, the Island was obliterated in 79 A.D. by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius,official excavation did not begin untill 1748.
The music played is Pre-Dark Side of the Moon, obscure to many listeners, but a real treat for those interested and open minded enough to enjoy it.It is PINK FLOYD in it's purest form, before Roger Waters started controlling the band. It is a great music video, not like todays MTV videos, changing angles and clips so fast you can't keep up with what's being played (or lip synced and mimed)! It's about the music, playing the music and seeing the music actually being played! It does drift off of the actual band playing from time to time, but you don't even realize it!
Also included is a scene of the band taking a lunch break, I love the part when Nick Mason orders a pie, without the crust!
And an interview takes place with footage of the making of The Dark Side of the Moon. Very cool!
Some tracks are :ECHOES PARTs 1&2; CAREFUL WITH THAT AXE, EUGENE; A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS; ONE OF THESE DAYS I'M GOING TO CUT YOU INTO LITTLE PIECES; SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN; and MADEMOISELLE NOBS(also known as "SEAMUS" on the album "MEDDLE")
Also the original release was September 1972 (not 1974 like Amazon.com says)! "And do I take you by the hand and lead you through the land,and help me understand the best I can"
Rating:
Summary: One of the best concert videos EVER!!
Review: When I think of my favorite video concerts, two in particular come to mind. "U2 at Red Rocks" and "Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii". The reason? LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! How can you beat the early, classic Floyd line-up actually setting their gear up in the empty ruins of Pompeii (i.e., no audience), jamming out their awesome pre-"Dark Side" material as the day's sun sets in the distance?? Then the huge spotlights come on, and they continue playing as night falls around them. No overdubs (unlike most, if not all, of today's "live" concert vids), and one of the best Floyd performances you'll ever hear. It all makes for quite a "heady" experience (if you know what I mean - so be sure to enjoy whatever it is you like to enjoy with this show!) Added bonus: in-studio interviews and clips of them making "Dark Side of the Moon" (to be expanded-upon in this DVD edition). A captivating experience - I can only imagine how awesome the DVD version of this will be!!
Rating:
Summary: Pink Floyd at its best!!
Review: I don't own the DVD yet but from the VHS I can tell you that this is the best live material from Floyd. The band at their best moment: Esotheric, cosmic, magical, epic and glorious... this is the Floyd we like. We need more like this... why they don't release Atom, Piper and Animals Live too? Tracks include live material from Meddle and "A Saucerful of Secrets". If you want to buy just one DVD from Floyd, this is the one, the best of them all.
Rating:
Summary: A true masterpiece
Review: Firstly, one has to say that pre-Dark Side era of The Pink Floyd is just as good as what followed the greatest album of all times. This way, it is quite obvious that Live At Pompeii should be extremely good. But it's not just it. I bought the VHS expecting to watch one of the greatest band of all time doing their well-known songs live. And that's not what I found. I found the greatest band of all times rediscovering their own songs, and making it so beautifully that I would call it mystical. The set list includes the 23-minute-epic-masterpiece "Echoes", much better than the original version. The chemistry between the band is so intense that you actually feel as if they were all doing just one thing: magic, not music. Each song is played slowly, yet intensively; few vocals are heard. Waters roars as a lunatic in Careful With that Axe, Eugene, while volcanos furiously spit magma. Gilmour murmurs softly a kind whisper in A Saucerful of Secrets, after Mason performs an amazing set of double bass drum. Even a dog is "invited" to "sing" in Mademoseille Nobes, which makes it even more strange (in a positive way, believe me).
If you're a die hard Floyd fan and loves songs such as Careful With that Axe Eugene, Echoes and One of These Days, go for it. If all you have ever heard from the Floyd is Another Brick in the Wall and your idea of their songs performed live links to bricks falling from the stage, forget it.
Rating:
Summary: Lighten up, folks!
Review: C'mon, people! Lighten up & give the band & the director/cinematographer a break. This movie was made in the '70s. I dare anyone who reads this to look at a photo of themselves 30 years ago & NOT cringe.
Lesson #1: Rock stars are not rocket scientists. Nor are they political visionaries, philosophical masters or religious icons. Typically they start out as nose-picking, pimple-popping, farting/belching teenagers who, if they're very, VERY lucky, record a song which becomes popular. All of a sudden the bright lights of fame are thrust upon them. The blemishes & the bad manners are still there but, because of their popularity we, the unwashed masses, choose to look upon them as godlike, full of incredible intellect, wit, & sociopolitical wisdom. (It's worse when they begin to believe the hype. A certain band from Georgia immediately comes to mind.) I happen to like Pink Floyd. But they ARE human & they WERE young & SOMEONE thought them important enough to stick a camera in their faces & place microphones around to pick up every noise uttered. Laugh at the absurdities & don't take it too seriously. Smile when Roger gets a shock from his microphone during "Eugene". Chuckle when Dave is chastised for swearing ("Christ!") during one of the meals. And give another listen to Roger, at the very beginning of the movie, take note of the silliness of the effort made to make 4 rock-n-roll stars look very chummy. Ooooh, heady stuff here!
Lesson #2: Don't penalize the past because it's not the present. Personal computers, cell 'phones, CGI, etc were not quite off the drawing board when this film was made. We should be thankful that there were those around who were smart enough to document the evolutionary process. This is a fun movie to watch for the older Floyd fans out there. Those weaned on The Wall need not comment.
Rating: 
Summary: Echoes in the deserted amphitheatre
Review: Instead of writing a typical "wow! yeah! super-groovy hippy-trippy highlight of the counter-culture" kind of review, I'm gonna write down the little known facts about this film, before giving you my opinion in the end...
After the recording of the Meddle album in London in the summer of 1971, P.F. was invited by the german director Adrian Maben to be the focus of a joint west german-belgian-french TV production. Maben's idea was to capture P.F. live in concert performing their new album in Italy. And P.F. did agree.
The place chosen was the deserted amphitheatre in Pompeii, an ancient city that was destroyed by the nearby volcano Vesuv's eruption more than 1000 years ago and buried in its lava. Both Pompeii and Vesuv are located in Southern Italy, near Naples.
Between 4-7 October 1971 P.F. moved almost a ton of equipment into the amphitheatre, and recorded several takes of the songs, so Maben could pick the best material for his film. The result was stunning.
Even thou a TV production and not a typical 35mm widescreen cinema film, it was decided to show it at the Venice Film Festival in Northern Italy on the 26 October 1972. It debuted under the title "Echoes-Pink Floyd" and even with a somehow short length of 61 min it was well recieved.
This inspired Maben to go 'the last mile'. During the last months of 1972 P.F. was in London recording their famous album Dark Side Of The Moon. Maben went over the channel with his TV crew and visited them at Abbey Road studios where they were at the middle of the recording. Further filming of rehearsals, interview bits and breakfast sessions took place.
Back in West Germany Maben assembled the filmstock. He kept all tracks from Pompeii 1971, but added three large segments from London 1972 intercut into the Pompeii concert. The finished film had a length of exactly 80 min and was premiered sometime 1974 (sources disagree) under the title "Pink Floyd-Live At Pompeii". (Even thou now having 19 min from London!).
In the years that followed this film has been show countless times on TV in a number of countries, plus living its own life as a cinema film, especially in USA.
From 1975 and onwards, with the introduction of video, it has been released and re-released many times on this system too. Both the 61m version, and more and more often in the later years the 80m version.
My personal opinion of this film is: The Pompeii 1971 filmstock is quite simply MAGIC, TRIPPY, SURREAL, UNREAL and WONDERFUL. Nothing wrong with neither the music or the surroundings.
BUT, BUT, BUT... The London 1972 filmstock is interesting enough, but mixing it with the psychedelic Pompeii bits was a major mistake done by Adrian Maben. (Example: after a wonderful segment from Pompeii, we get to see P.F. sitting around the breakfast table at Abbey Road babbling uninspired to each other for a few minutes before the "time machine" brings us back to the Pompeii magic once again).
This jumping back and forth takes away the intensity of the Pompeii filmstock. And instead of feeling of seeing one great P.F. concert (like the original 61m film made most people do), we're left with a just another '70s documentary.
How should he (Maben) have avoided this?
Either to...
1. Kept it as a 61 min concert film called Echoes (great title too).
2. Tagged on those 19 London minutes at end of the film. Because of these mistakes, the full-length Pompeii is not the greatest ever concert film, but it's close. It's certainly one of the most memorable ones from the '70s alongside Rainbow Bridge. It's recommended to P.F. fans, and other fans of '60s/'70s rock outside the mainstream.
Rating:
Summary: If you like this band a lot, then buy it
Review: If you like Floyd, you really should buy this, or be patient when it is released on DVD because it is a gem. A lot of the concert movies of this era are bad, but this happens to be one of the best. The musicians are interviewed through the course of the movie, but not Richard Wright...hmmm I wonder why?
Rating:
Summary: Virtuosity at its finest.
Review: Nick Mason's skill as a drummer is stunning. Seeing David Gilmour in the studio recording Dark Side of the Moon gives the viewer a ringside seat to history. Imagine being able to watch Mozart perform live 200 years ago; 200 years from now, that's how viewers of this film will look back on Pink Floyd. I only wish it was five times as long.
Rating:
Summary: Best Early Pink Floyd Video
Review: I've owned this video for several years and spent several years trying to track it down and persisted because this video takes one on a mental journey where you lose yourself completely in the imagery and the sounds in a visual trip accentuated by the brilliant experimentation in music created by Pink Floyd in their earlier years. If you are a serious Pink Floyd fan this video is a must have that for me rivals "The Wall" but in a very different direction that is just as unique and profound in the creative genius of Pink Floyd.
|
