The Stone Roses: The DVD

The Blackpool Live DVD is a pretty poorly filmed document of one of their finest gigs. The DVD has been slightly remastered and it's not quite as dark or muffled as the video but it still fails to capture the magic of what must have been an earth shattering event. Ian Brown was never one of the best live singers and this does the band no favours. If you were there it didn't matter that Ian wasn't singing in tune or John wouldn't turn his flanger pedal off. But on DVD it is all rather trying to watch. The Blackpool gig is worth watching once as a valuable record of the Roses live, but it won't be watched over and over like DVD2.

The second DVD contains most of the "Complete Stone Roses" video and here lies the real value of the DVD. There's Fools Gold on TOTP, the Rapido interview, the "Amateurs! Amateurs!" performance on the Late Show and lots more. There's even MY GOD! a few seconds of home video footage Silvertone haven't released before! Surprisingly here's a few things missing - notably the She Bangs the Drums video and the Fools Gold Video. I guess Silvertone must be saving them for the DVD volume two along with some Ian Brown toenail clippings.
This DVD is well worth buying for any Roses fan, unless they already own the "Complete" video, in which case it's fairly pointless. A good compilation DVD of Stone Roses footage, great songs and a great band. Silvertone will continue to release more cash ins for as long as we buy it.

It was only a matter of time before Silvertone got with the times and released a long overdue DVD of the Roses. Surely one of the only major bands upto this point without one.
So, obviously its another attempt from the labels to cash in on the legendary status of the Roses (avoid all 'Greatest Hits packages like the plague), but to be fair there is a lot of footage I had never seen before.

Originally I thought it was just the Blackpool gig, but there is much more on show. Some fairly amatuerish (late show clip anyone ?) videos from the late 80's are in, mainly live shows on tape, and dodgy purple graphics !

The sound on the gig is better than I expected, and does capture some the magic of the time. Being born five years too late, I missed them first time around, becoming a fan during their, in my opinion, underatted comeback album and tour. All the classics are there, plus 'Where Angels Play', my favourite although not that well known.

The extras are very interesting. Two songs at the Hacienda, the smarmy Wilson apologising that he had thought they were crap, then jumping on teh bandwagon, and a hilarious Ian/John interview where the phrase 'blood from a stone' is very apt !
Also some home film footage showing making that classic album which was unexpected but valuable.

Overall, a must have for any fan and any other music fan who likes good tunes !