Search - Gong: Monsterrat 1973 and Other Stories on DVD

THE VINTAGE PERFORMANCE FOOTAGE IS WORTHLESS.

G. Putman | Las Vegas, NV United States | 04/17/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Having been a Gong fan since I was a teenager back in the 70's, I was really excited to finally get the chance to see classic era 70's Gong footage. As a matter-of-fact, I basically bought this DVD for the Monsterrat '73 concert, as opposed to the numerous "extras" included here. After all, from the title I figured that the main feature here was that concert, with other extras thrown in. Well, things are not as they seem. Basically, this `73 footage starts out with the band walking through the countryside, dressed in wild outfits. There is soundtrack music playing, but get a load of this.....If you listen carefully, it sounds like this Gong soundtrack music is taken from a LP! I'm afraid that's a sign of things to come. Then there is a segment when each member of the band speaks to the camera about Planet Gong, which is kinda cool, except that it is extremely out-of-sync. The actual '73 performance footage consists of less than 10 MINUTES of grainy, poorly filmed footage. To make matters worse, THE MUSIC THAT YOU HEAR IS NOT EVEN WHAT THE BAND IS PLAYING ON STAGE. What I think happened is that the producer got some silent footage and just put an old bootleg sounding live audio recording over it. What a major disappointment. Also, the Soft Machine '69 footage from the UFO club was taken from one distant camera at the very back of the club. This is basically 5 minutes of Allen reciting a poem over improvised music. If the video was all I had to go by, and could not hear the music, this could have been anyone on the stage, as I could not even begin to tell who was who.

The rest of the DVD consists of short recent performance art/poetry reading films expressing the political views of Allen. That's ok I guess as I totally relate to what he is trying to say, but it is not why I bought this DVD. It is for these that I gave this two stars instead of just one. The Mother Gong feature was ok too.

So, get this is you want to see the sort of performance art Daevid Allen has been doing for the last several years, and if you want to see Mother Gong in action. If you are looking for killer vintage Gong and Soft Machine footage, then RUN AWAY FAST!
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