Dr. Feelgood - Going Back Home [DVD] [1975]

A film of some of the gig has appeared for the first time this year on DVD and comes with this bonus CD, which features the entire concert. My copy is a promo which did not come with the DVD, so I am reviewing the bonus CD only. It is the first time the whole concert has been released (although besides the album side, a few other tracks from the concert have turned up on singles) and captures the band at the peak of their powers.

As well as songs from the first two essential albums, Down By The Jetty and Malpractice, there are a number of live favourites such as I Can Tell and I'm A Man (both Bo Diddley covers), Sonny Boy Williamson's Checkin' On My Baby, the Coasters' I'm A Hog For You and another Leiber/Stoller song, Riot In Cell Block Number Nine, a signature selection for the band.

Three bonus tracks come from the Sheffield concert a few months earlier: Talkin' 'Bout You (the Chuck Berry rather than Ray Charles song), Stupidity and Walking The Dog. The final track, Johnny B Goode, was on a single that came with early copies of the Stupidity album, and was recorded at the Friar's Club in Aylesbury on 17 May 1975.

Only three Sheffield tracks from the Stupidity album are not on this CD (Twenty Yards Behind, All Through The City, She Does It Right) and there are performances from the Southend concert of all of these tunes, so this is a more than adequate substitute for that album. And you get a DVD, too!

The bad news is that the concert film itself is only just over 30 minutes long but like others have said, it is 30 minutes of brilliance. Not only that, but the sound has been mixed into both Dolby Digital and DTS, and the picture is remarkably good considering its age.

The inclusion of an audio CD of more than 70 minutes of live Feelgood, mostly from the same show, makes up for the shortness of the film somewhat.

I saw Dr Feelgood play (in Southend) in the very early 80s and remember them being good then, and I can remember that the first time I really heard of them was in about 1977. What surprised me a bit about this film was how (comparatively) big they were even back in 1975. Big enough to have a decent repertoire, fill up the Kursaal, and have a film made anyway.

What sums it all up for me is seeing Lee Brilleaux onstage in a white suit which looks as if it has been slept in - on a dirty garage floor. That sheer aura of seediness, combined with Wilko's manic wanderings, backed up by one of the tightest rhythm sections ever makes this one of the best concert films I own. Lee was once quoted in the early 80s as saying 'Who needs a drum machine when you've got The Big Figure?' and you can see what he means here.

Above all, I was most amazed that this was such a cracking show before they had even released such songs as Milk & Alcohol, Baby Jane, and Down at the Doctors. If this show had featured the immortal "eight bars of piano" line it would have been worth 6 stars out of 5!