GREATEST HITS - CLIPS, INTERVIEWS AND TV-SPECIALS

The legendary Dutch progrock band Earth & Fire is an acclaimed one on this site, I enjoyed to read the cascades of positive reviews. To my surprise the last year released DVD was not included on Prog Archives so I did my chauvinistic job!

This DVD features their 20 'greatest hits' as tv clips and an interview and live footage from the German television. The tv clips can be divided into three parts. The first part contains the rock/Sixties oriented sound: the clips "Seasons", "Ruby is the one", "Wild and exciting" and "Invitation" show windmills, typical Dutch landscapes (pine tree forests, dunes, sea) and a gorgeous, very sexy female singer Jerney Kaagman. The second part features the wonderful symphonic rock-era, based upon melodic and often moving compositions with wonderful violin- Mellotron work, sensitive electric guitar and warm vocals: "Storm and thunder" (what a splendid Mellotron sound!), "Memories" (on the German television), "Maybe tormorrow, maybe tonight" (on the most famous Dutch pop programm Toppop) and "Love of life". The final part delivers the commercial period: Earth & Fire sounded very smooth with a blend of rock, pop and disco, very professional but to me awful! Most of the clips features ex-Focus bass player Bert Ruiter, he is living with Jerney for more than 20 years. And on "French word for love" ex-Kayak and Camel keyboardplayer Ton Scherpenzeel can be seen.

The most interesting part of this DVD is on The Extra's/Bonus material (at about 25 minutes) that contains an interview (in German) with Jerney Kaagman and outstanding live footage from an inspired early Earth & Fire on the German television (Swing In and Musikladen): an excerpt from "Song of the marching children", an extended version of "Storm and thunder" (including a compelling solo on the Mellotron) and "Maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight" (great interplay between guitar and keyboards from the twin- brothers Gerard and Chris Koerts). For me it was an emotional experience to look at these wonderful live scenes from this great Dutch symphonic rock band, EXCELLENT!

THIS IS ESSENTIAL DUTCH PROGROCK, NOW ON DVD!!

I bought this DVD two or three month ago, curious to see how the band progress through the years or better said regress in the late '70's early '80's. Not a bad DVD, here you can see al the periods of the band from the psychedelic era early '70's through the pop era of the band the '80's. Anyway for a begginer or even for conoseurs this is a good but non essntial DVD with some very fine moments like MAYBE TOMORROW MAYBE TONIGHT, both clip and live version,WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE, and from the pop era JACK IS BACK - i simply enjoy this track very much, the rest are ok. So 3 stars for this collection of pieces from a band that i enjoy listen specialy from the symphonic era of the band 1973-1975.