Customer Reviews

The Butterfly Ball

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When Roger Glover recorded the original Butterfly Ball album, it was intended to be the soundtrack for a proposed movie. It is a superb record, with a wide variety of musical styles to match the various characters. When he got the opportunity to stage it as a one-off concert for a children's benefit, he was able to get most of the original participants to take part. As a concert, the entire show is a success. The band consisting of Les Binks-drums (later to join Judas Priest), Mo Foster-bass (future Jeff Beck sideman), and Ray Fenwick-guitar (soon to be Ian Gillan's axe-man)were aided by Eddie Jobson-violin (Roxy Music/UK/Jethro Tull), Purple's Jon Lord on organ and others. All the concert footage is a sheer delight to watch and it must have been the event of a lifetime. However, left to their own devices, the producers butchered the concert footage by splicing in skits with actors dressed as animals, ballet sequences and combat footage. It's difficult to watch what started as an event get turned into a psychedelic fantasy gone bad. The non musical clips are far beyond annoying, almost to the point of nausea. For many years Roger has stated he was embarrassed beyond belief when he attended the world premier at a theater in London. Until you actually see this movie you won't be able to understand why. It's too bad they couldn't have put a little effort into this DVD and given the viewer the option to watch the movie version or just the concert. The highlight has to be the long jam on Watch Out For The Bat, sung by John Gustafson (ex-Roxy Music, Quatermass and soon to be Ian Gillan's bassist). What started out on the album as a two minute rocker is transformed into a seven+ minute jam, with an extended guitar/violin workout. Jobson and Fenwick turn in stellar performances throughout the show, but this is the best chance for them to step out and display their talents. My 4 star rating is strictly for the musical portion of this show. As a "movie", it wouldn't get any stars. Purchase at your own risk, you have been warned.

First of all - i?ve always been a fan of BB, and i remember the TV-broadcasting back in the 7oies. But what we have here on DVD is simply ... incredible. The scenes edited in the concert are stuff that might become cult one day. Like Ed Wood Mr. Tom Klinger is the perfect candidate for "Rotten Tomatoes" ;-)
The costumes ... the surrounding (a foggy afternoon - should not butterfly ball be a colourful event?) ... the DVD-compression (more particles than picts). Poor Rog. I just wonder that Roger did have no opinion to stop this. Even the live-shots on stage are more than bad. Unsharp, dark, and mostly showing exactly the guys who are not on the spot. And to be honest: Even the musical performance is not stunning. Singers flat or high, forgetting lyrics ... compared to the studio recording this is really poor.

Rog, if you ever read this: BB live has not been that bad like the DVD suggests. Please grab out the originial 16mm-movies from the concert and edit them for a "director?s cut". If you need help, i would be glad to do colour correction, compression, remixing ... but don?t let it be the way it is.
kind regards to all BB-fans
norman - weichselbaum@operator.at

But not on this occassion it doesn't. Deep Purple were so disturbed by the quality of this video that they were embarrassed by it and wanted all copies returned, and destroyed poste haste. I was surprised to find the video available at all.
Here, in Australia, it was released back in 1982, and it is this copy I still own. It is deteriorating quickly and I was looking to have it replaced on DVD, but alas, its not to be.
There are some fine performances here and the best of all is Ronnie James Dio singing 'Love is All'. It was a minor hit at the time of release in the 70's, but was shunned by most because of its (distant) connection to Deep Purple, the thought being that it would be just another Heavy Metal Album/film. How wrong they were.
Twiggy makes an appearance and has great vocals, particulary with the closing song 'Homeward'.
It is an amazing compilation of tracks, where some work and some don't. But overall, an interesting piece of work by Roger Glover et al. The film is interspersed with concert footage, filmed sequences and of course animation. Unless some type of remastering has been done, I feel certain that the video will still look the same, out of focus and washed out in certain parts.
The current price will probably preclude me in purchasing this video due to the $100 price tag, exchange rates between Australia and US and its import costs.
Still, for those of you who may remember the song 'Love is All' and the accompanying animated Frog (Ronnie James Dio)scene, you'll love this film. Otherwise, an alternative would be to buy the album instead, there is a CD-Rom version of the animation (Love is All) that can be played on most computers.

Having only known the filmclip of "Love Is All" by Ronnie James Dio from my youth, it was interesting to finally have the chance to watch the whole experience.

Well worth seeing as it is a visual feast, and very cleverly done.

It's just great to see all these great artists at their best playing really nice songs. Roger Glover did a nice job putting all togheter

This is the live-in-the-Albert production, with some cute filmed bits in between. The sound quality is quite reasonable, and it's good for a light evening's entertainment. (Alas that they only did the cartoon of "Love is All".)

It was amusing hearing Sargeant Apone from Aliens sing. He's quite good, in fact. As was Twiggy.

Enjoy!

VHS VERSION
VERY COOL MOVIE/CONCERT W/ MANY ARTISTS STRETCHING OUT FOR ROGER GLOVER.
I REALLY LIKE THIS FILM. IT HAS A LITTLE FOR EVERYONE,EVEN KIDS.
VINTAGE STUFF HERE W/ RARE PERFORMANCES AND IN MY OPINION JOHN LAWTON STEALS THE SHOW!GET THIS VHS NOW WHILE YOU CAN!
YOU WILL BE SURPRISED TO SEE VINCENT PRICE NARRATE STORY,SITTING IN HIS CHAIR OCCASIONALLY SHOWING UP TO SET THE MOOD OF THE BUTTERFLY BALL.
I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS! GET IT!

Roger Glover and an all star cast of 70's heavy metal stars put on a concert to promote Glover's Butterfly Ball album. Vincent Price does narration straight out of the book of the same name. Glenn Hughes (Dave Mustaine's twin) opens the concert with Get Ready. Look for David Coverdale singing on Behind the Smile (you won't recognize him). Concert scenes are interspersed with scenes of people dressed up like some of the characters they are singing about like Old Blind Mole and Froggy. The sketches are so terrible they are hilarious. The only real let down for me was the fact that Ronnie James Dio was not able to attend due to his involvement with Rainbow. Ian Gillan (Deep Purple's second singer) took over vocals for him on Sitting in a Dream. Twiggy (the famous model) sang Homeward in place of Ronnie as the closing number. Watch Out for the Bat turns into a long jam session. The violinist on the song uses a very unique hollow body violin that looks as if it was made out of glass. His solo is the centerpiece of the song. Tony Ashton's antics on Together Again are hysterical. As bad as everybody involved with this think it is, it still is worth watching.