GIANT ON THE BOX

This DVD contains all the great GENTLE GIANT song's that fans of this band love so much. It is a pleasure to see how technically good those guys are, just take the bassist RAY SHULMAN: He plays bass, violin, trumpet and he sings, or take GENTLE GIANT's keyboarder KERRY MINNEAR: He plays the keys, cello, recorder and vibraphone (he has an outstanding vibe-solo on "Funny Ways"). The entire band shows its best, GARY GREEN's solos on the guitar are very impressive, JOHN WEATHER's holds all the syncopated beats and I think he is the man who rocks most (it is simply awesome to see how he is a part of the music). DEREK SHULMAN who sings each song (even the parts which on CD are sung by KERRY MINNEAR) plays also bass, saxophone and recorder and convinces in each song.

GIANT ON THE BOX contains two gigs: the first was given in Brussels in 1974 (ZDF-Sonntagskonzert) and the second was given in Long Beach, California, USA at Terrace Theater in 1975.

The first gig is longer and icludes more songs than the second gig, but both are pretty good!

About the first gig: I couldn't believe it as the audience didn't applaud after the first song "Cogs In Cogs". But the giants didn't care and kept on playing. At last, after the two songs "Procalamation" and "Funny Ways" (the band connected both tracks) the audience applauded. The intro of "The Runaway" is as always amazing, Experience rocks a lot, in "Features From Octopus" GENTLE GIANT shows their virtuosity and the dissonant "So Sincere" has a great drumbash (DEREK SHULMAN used to call it "drum insanity") right at the end. Great gig!

The second gig is also very good, though it is much shorter than the first one. The band plays four of the songs they played on the first gig, or, no, actually there are three songs played (though the list tells something else: "Features From Octopus" and "The Advent of Panurge" is the same as "Features Of Octopus" on the first gig). In the song "Funny Ways" KERRY MINNEAR's cello is a bit out of tune, so the band has to tune it up again, but that's not bad, those things simply happen on when playing live. The vibraphone-solo is of course amazing again!

There are some other interesting features on GIANT ON THE BOX like some pictures from GARY GREEN's private photo-collection and there is also a documentation about GENTLE GIANT, admitettly it is in Italian, so you don't understand a word, if your not from Italy.

However, this DVD is a must, not only for GENTLE GIANT-fans, it is a must for all those people who love prog.

Five stars!!!