Flashback DVD Review #9 - Gillan - Live Edinburgh 1980

This review was written for the Rock Is Life.com website in 2006.

(2012 Update: The comments made in this review led to me getting feedback from both guitarist Bernie Torme and bassist John McCoy. That led to a few email exchanges with McCoy and a bunch of exchanges with Torme. Both of them were great to deal with.)

Gillan
Live Edinburgh 1980 (DVD)
Music Video Distributors 2006
http://www.gillan.com

What's The 4-1-1?

This is the US release of the Deep Purple singer's classic solo band performance filmed for Scottish TV. The DVD features 5 songs in the main performance with three bonus archival numbers. Also included is a history of Gillan, a one hour documentary that includes interviews with the members of the band at the time and a performance featuring three ex-members of the band.

Genre

Hard Rock / Classic Rock

The Good

The concert, recorded at the Gateway Theater in Edinburgh, is actually only a small portion of the running time of the DVD. It is about 25 minutes long. It is five songs that range from a cover of the Elvis Presley song "Trouble", which I found very good to the closing song with an extended musical jam "No Easy Way".

The band is tight and alternates quite easily between a more hard rocking sound to a quieter mellow tone during what I found to be the best song of the set, "Mutally Assured Destruction (M.A.D.)".

The bonus features on this disc include a performance from the group G.M.T. which is ex-members of Gillan Bernie Torme (guitars/vocals) and bassist John McCoy along with drummer Robin Guy. The song they perform, "Cannonball", is absolutely fantastic. It is a real slice of pure hard driving rock and roll. I was completely taken by surprise at how good the song was.

The standout feature on the disc however was the documentary. It paints a less than flattering picture of Ian Gillan's handling of the band's finances. The other members of the band talk quite candidly about all manner of things related to that subject and other things Gillan. It was very interesting to watch and listen to.

The Bad

The archival footage is three live performances from the band. The first two are "Vengeance" and "Smoke on the Water". These sound great. The third track is "Sleeping on the Job" and it sounds terrible. The overall terrible video quality on all three has me wonering why on earth they were released in the first place. If this was just a CD, they might've worked. However, enduring looking at the TV screen was just headache inducing.

The CD release family tree and photo gallery is fine in general but things I'm not really interested in on a DVD. They are really features best served on a website these days though.

The lack of participation from Ian Gillan himself is kind of a distraction. It would've been nice to get his take on what his former bandmates had to say about him in the documentary or his perspective on the concert.

The Verdict

It was a rather short look back into the past of '70's and early '80's hard rock, but well worth the time investment. The music sounded great and it was provided by one of my favorite singers of late. The band is / was amazing.

What really made the DVd for me besides the music was the documentary. Unlike a Behind the Music episode, they really just let the musicians talk with minimal guidance. You got more information and inside looks at the band and its history than you could ever get out of a soundclip type of interview.

Did You Know?

The Gillan guitarist Bernie Torme recorded an album with Twisted Sister vocalist Dee Snider under the name Desperado. It took 5 years after completing the CD before it was ever released. Some of the songs later wound up on the next Dee Snider project Widowmaker.

Before hitting it big with Deep Purple, Ian Gillan played in such bands as Garth Rocket and the Moonshiners, The Javelins and Episode Six.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5