Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Mvd Visual
• VHS Release Date: September 16, 1997
• Run Time: 35 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 6302562201
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #100,777 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This 35-minute hodgepodge documentary is for the Deadhead who truly must own everything. Justin Kreutzmann, son of drummer Bill, could have used his incredible access to the band to make an intimate and compelling documentary. Instead, it looks as though he picked up unused pieces of every home movie ever made about the Dead--with not a single interview!--and glued them together in order of how they were scooped from the vaults. He segues from a Pigpen song ("Hard to Handle") accompanying random images of the band over three decades, to Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart playing (and playing and playing) rain sticks, to the late keyboardist Brent Mydland crooning his most saccharine-infused ballad, "Easy to Love You." The highlights--a black-and-white acoustic studio performance of Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Phil Lesh singing a heartbreaking version of Dylan's "She Belongs to Me," and random silent footage of the Dead on their historic visit to the pyramids in 1978--only underscore what could have been a remarkable, intimate portrait with a little more thought and a lot more polish. --Anne Hurley

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Bad Video - AWESOME HARD TO HANDLE, April 7, 2010

By 

Nicholas Landess - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Backstage Pass [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This video, as I recall (I saw it years ago), is pretty eminently forgettable. I basically agree with the "professional" review above - with what one assumes is unlimited access to the vault and the band, the production team produced a rather aimless, meandering, finger painting of a video and audio montage without a real point. But the opening Hard to Handle is completely breathtaking - a real glimpse of the tremendous boogie potential of the earlier incarnations of the Grateful Dead. I can't really say that I recommend the video, but I nonetheless encourage you to buy it.