ROCK MILESTONES PINK FLOYD'S WISH YOU WERE HERE

I have always been fascinated by rock documentaries, it's the combination of telling stories, revealing personal facts about the band members and showing of rare and/or unseen live footage. This DVD is focussed on the album Wish You Were Here (1975), the successor of the 'ultimate progrock album' Dark Side Of The Moon' (1973). The first and second chapter are about Dark Side Of The Moon and Syd Barrett. Some quotes: "On DSOTM everything on it is on the right time", "the band used a lot of sound bits", "every part of it worked" and "one day Roger Waters walked in and said that he had an idea: a concept, a piece about being in rock and roll". Chapter 3,4, 5 and 6 are dedicated to all songs on the album Wish You Were Here. About Shine On You Crazy Diamond: "it's written as a testimony to Syd Barrett". About Welcome To The Machine: "It's about a new age of mankind in which the needs of the individual no longer counts". About Have A Cigar: "Gilmour's vocal lacked the necessary bite so we brought in Roy Harper". And about Wish You Were Here: "This is a happy incident in the control room, I was strumming on the guitar and Roger said, hey what's that? and the rest is history... I love the emotion in it". The stories are embellished with great footage from Live In Venice (1989), Live At Knebworth (1990), BBC Look Of The Week (1967) and finally Live 8 (2005), very tasteful and compelling! If you are up to this kind of DVD's, this one is recommended!

BEWARE! ?. Of unsprupulous others who make DVD documentaries with 'INDEPENDENT EDITORIAL CONTROL'. They contain the same old clips seen in legitimate 'docos' interspersed with 'nobody' talkiing heads and cover bands playing floyd numbers because the makers of these DVD's have no legal access to actual pink floyd material.

These DVD's overlap dramatically, using the same material over and over, mostly Syd era stuff, even when the title of the DVD refers to later albums or periods, the same Syd era stuff is trotted out to fill space.

If you must buy any of these DVDs then buy one of the more 'general' ones that covers the whole history and then STOP there. Look for the 2 disk releases ? they are the better ones, or the Inside Pink Floyd volumes 1&2.

AVOID those titles as individual album reviews in particular as these are generally the worst. These DVD;s contain nothing new for the Floyd aficionado. Especially avoid the 4 disk sets as these contain the sam amount as the 2 disk sets, simply spread out on to 4 shorter disks.

You have been warned! Don't waste your money