Search - Bickershaw Festival on DVD

I wish I could give it a far lower rating!

Jeffrey N. Ward | Geneva, IL USA | 11/28/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"The Bickershaw Festival DVD, at 30 bucks I might add, is an utter ripoff.

Either terrible or nonexistent camera work, terrible sound, repeated still shots instead of performances, shots from behind the artists, and concert footage that's not from the actual Bickershaw festival! With the exception of Captain Beefheart, NOWHERE on the DVD packaging is it mentioned you won't be seeing complete live performances. There's no footage of the Kinks at all!

I would never pay $30 to see crowd shots, marginally interesting interviews, and one garbled song per artist.

Avoid this DVD at all costs! Get the 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival instead."

Buyer Beware

Raf | USA | 12/25/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This is not a concert film, although it is certainly packaged to appear like one. The warning sign is hidden in small type on the cover of this DVD: "rare festival footage featuring extracts from the sets of..." 'Extracts' translates to a montage of still photographs, a few seconds of barely viewable film footage (mostly of the crowd), and audio that is muddy and unlistenable. So sad, as there were some rarely-filmed acts at this festival, including Captain Beefheart's Magic band and Captain Beyond. Save your money and invest in the various German TV Rockpalast reissues (such as Rockin' In the USA, which contains prime Captain Beefheart footage), Festival Express, and the top quality The Old Grey Whistle Test [Region 2] multi-DVD set."

Cold rain but thankfully, no snow

Junglies | Morrisville, NC United States | 01/06/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Some thirty plus years ago I entered a competition in a relatively new Brit music newspaper, Sounds, for tickets to a festival in Bickershaw, Lancashire and to my surprise won, along with my pal Dave. We sold one pair and with the proceeds bought bus tickets and off we jolly well went.

My main reason for going was to see the Grateful Dead, again, and in the end I was not to be disappointed.

What followed was three days of peace, love and music and dreadful weather which ended up in the site being a quagmire and freezing cold. Unlike Woodstock there are no pictures of people frolicking in the mud like happy hippy hippos but there are many of people huddled together for shared bodily warmth and also being very friendly.

I bought this DVD, at great expense (isn't the weak dollar not wonderful) more as a memento than as a movie and to that extent I was not disappointed. The DVD is like my memories of the festival bits here and bits there, shards of experiences both good and bad. It must be admitted that the quality is not good but then for those who were there the music was the important thing.

This DVD is probably not for the general viwere of fan or music lover but as a picture of a period of time, or for people like myself, a trip down memory lane, it is worth buying to show our kids or grandkids and for that reason alone I would recommend it."

AVOID, AVOID, AVOID!!!! This doesn't deserve any stars!!

Great Caesar's Ghost | New York, NY | 05/07/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I just rented this for $[,[...] and I was quite excited. Excited to the degree that I went to Amazon to check if it was available BEFORE I even watched it. I'm watching it now and... wow. It's horrible. It's like a bad PowerPoint presentation with occasional video clips interspersed and REPEATED throughout.

WHOA. Some actual synchronized footage of Country Joe MacDonald playing an acoustic guitar in high winds! Bad audio, uninspired performance, cut off mid-song. Fab.

An on-camera interview with Jerry Garcia who's obviously bummed out about the weather and the facilities in general. He say "festivals are an unfortunate circumstance to be playing in." Hoo boy! Great shots of the amps... utter crap.

Overall POOR audio quality. Video is mostly lo-res stills and 2 second clips from multiple POOR sources--some of it from performances OTHER than this festival! What's the point of that?

By the way, we get about 30 second of live Beefheart. If it were on YouTube, you'd probably complain about the quality.

Don't even rent this. I'm going to ask for my $[...] back. Really."