Search - Fleetwood Mac: The Early Years (Import) on DVD

Buyer beware

Walter Sobchak | Nam | 05/24/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This appears to be a poorly done rework of an earlier 1994 VHS release (and 1999 DVD) of the same name. The original got mixed reviews because many of the tracks are of the band lip synching. While I would much rather have live tracks, some of the lip-synched stuff captures the flavor of the times nicely and it's not a deal breaker for me.

The bigger problem for me with this release is there is some VERY useless and annoying narration over some of the tracks, and a couple seem to be cut off early. If you're going to put something like this out, there should be a menu that allows you to watch any of the songs in their entirety without narration.

The producers show incredibly bad judgment in editing out Hugh Heffner's campy introduction of the band doing "Rattlesnake Shake" on the show "Playboy After Dark" (if you know the song you will dig the irony), and then running a narrative over the performance. Doh! You can find this clip and some others on YouTube, which is what made me realize there was some video of these guys available and I had to have it.

If you are a hardcore Peter Green fan, this would almost be worth shelling out the $[...] I paid to see the live versions of "World Keep On Turning" and "Like It This Way." The rest of the Peter Green tracks are lip synched -- Rattlesnake Shake, Albatross, Man of the World, I'm Worried, Oh Well. Couple of live Jeremy Spencer tunes if you are into that.

Other tracks are Shake Your Moneymaker, My Heart Beat Like a Hammer, Need Your Love So Bad, Linda, and Stop Messin' Around (not even lip synched -- just a montage of some of the footage from Rattlesnake Snake and some stills -- LIKE NOBODY IS GOING TO NOTICE).

Sheesh -- have some respect for the band and your audience. I have a copy of the original VHS coming in the mail (for half the price) because it's worth it to me to have these tracks without the narration. You can also find the original version of the DVD (from 1999) on Amazon but you will pay $[...] or more.

This DVD is going back for a refund. I'd read the reviews of the original release and thought that was what I was buying. That's why I say "Buyer beware." They should have called this something else, or simply re-released the original version.


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