Beat, Beat, Beat: Eclectic Collection, Vol. 2

First a note: This is Volume TWO in the series, not 4). Onlt three have been released. See the image. Now to my review:

Beat Beat Beat - not to be confused with the German TV show Beat Club (which was a staged music show) - was the late 1960s version of American Bandstand broadcast in Frankfurt Germany. Teens sat in the stands or danced which current pop stars performed on stage. Most of the bands played live while the solo vocalists lip-synched their hits to a recording. The artists who appeared were often British pop stars with a few American artists who became bigger in the UK than in the US. The show ran for 26 episodes from 1966 through 1969 and all were recorded and archived in the German TV archives.

To my knowledge, this is the first time performances from these shows are being issued on home video - at least in the US. While some performers are big names worldwide, others had success only on the east side of the Atlantic Ocean.

This DVD is one of three "Best of" volumes released in the US from Music Video Distributors. It is the shortest one -at only 24 minutes - with eight songs shown in crisp black and white images. This isn't "American Bandstand" or even Britain's "Ready Steady Go" since the German teens don't smile when they dance and usually sit stone-faced while watching the performers. The highlight here comes at the beginning with The Mindbenders doing the hits they had after parting from Wayne Fontana. The opening "In The Midnight Hour" is really a medley including "Land of 1000 Dances", "See See Rider" and other Mitch Ryder hits. Texan P.J. Proby (who had more success in the UKE than the US) lip-synchs his recording of "What's Wrong With My World. And P.O. Arnold - formerly an Ikette - gets to lip-synch two songs. The finale are two hot numbers by The Creation (with some neat guitar bowing - yes, bowing - but it is marred by distorted sound.

I'm really glad these performances are available - especially the live band tracks -and if you are a fan of any of these groups you'll want to see this DVD. But I deleted a star because of the poor sound quality on too many of the tracks and another for the extremely short playing time. (The producers could have easily combined some of the volumes to give the viewer more value for their money.

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see the review  3.0 out of 5 stars