Emerson, Lake & Palmer: The Birth of a Band - Live at the Isle of Wight 1970

I had such high hopes for this dvd, as previously available clips looked like a clean, well photographed record of an exciting, if raw performance. After a few minutes my expectations were shattered as the video slowed down and even stopped as the music played on. Then Keith Emerson's Moog lines were shown being played on Hammond organ, and other visuals were obviously drawn from other parts of the performance. Then we are treated to long clips of the beach, children, boat races, street scenes, piles of trash, and Isle of Wight crowd scenes filmed during the day when ELP went on at night. It reminds me of how Ed Wood struggled with day and night scenes in "Plan Nine From Outer Space." I wanted to see the second ever ELP concert, not some lame director's attempt at an "art film." I can't imagine even Ed Wood butchering this as badly in the editing room. I'll never understand why it's so difficult making an accurate record of a concert without someone inserting nonsense intending to improving the experience--the concert should speak for itself. On the plus side there are some good recent interviews with E, L, P, and their ex-manager. 4 stars for the performance and minus 3 for the post-production meddling.

The first review by Mark is accurate.The only thing that saves this is the Carl Palmer drum solo.I thought this was going to be like Jethro Tull's Nothing is Easy DVD from the Isle of Wight (which is excellent). It's not.When they showed power boats racing to ELP's music I had to laugh. This is so insane it's funny.Very disappointing overall.If they did show you the actual footage from the whole concert this would be AWESOME.I'm sorry to say it isn't.All you get is about 10 or 15 minutes of actual footage.Whoever made this should be ashamed of themselves.I gave it 2 stars because I love Emerson ,Lake and Palmer.Go for'Master's from the Vault's 'instead.

I can't say enough bad things about this video. I picked it up in the store and couldn't wait to see it. They keep showing the same clips over and over and over, in slow motion that are not at all what the band is playing. As mentioned in the other review, we watch ridiculous boat races to the music. The only thing that keeps me from getting rid of this DVD is the final performance of Rondo,in sinc and in real time which is is where they get all the slow-motion clips they use in the rest of the DVD.