Customer Reviews

Concert and Documentary: Europe 1997

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

 

 

First off this DVD is from the 1997 European tour, not 1977 as Amazon has misprinted. I saw this lineup of Butterfly in July 1995 and they were amazing. They said at the show that a new album would be released by next Spring. The "New Album" never materialized. I dont know exactly how long this lineup stayed together but in my opinion its the best that the band has ever sounded (no offense to the prior lineups). With Doug Ingle on Lead Vocals and Keyboards, Lee Dorman on Bass and backing Vocals, Ron Bushy on Drums, Eric Barnett on Guitar and Backing Vocals and Derek Hilland on 2nd Keyboards and backing Vocals this band is sensational.
The Five stars I gave this product mainly represents the Quality of the performances. The Sound is very good and the picture is a little grainy at times, also I dont like the fadeouts between songs. That said there is nothing more to complain about other than it's only about 65 mins. of Music. The songs played are: Iron Butterfly Theme, Unconcious Power, In the Time of Our Lives, Flowers and Beads, Silent Screaming, Ezy Rider, Butterfly Bleu, Whispers in the Wind and of course In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. "Screaming and Whispers" are "New songs".
After the "Concert portion of the DVD you get the Bonus Interviews which include a nice Acoustic song by Ingle. The Interviews are very informative and entertaing. Doug Ingle expresses himself well. Steve Howe of Yes talks a bit about his memories of touring alongside the Butterfly. At this time the DVD is available on Amazon for as little as $12.33. I highly reccomend that if you ever liked Butterfly at all to check this show out. Eric Barnetts Guitar work adds a whole new dimension to the classic sound of this great band. His playing exhuberates a lot of soul in each string of notes. Ingle sounds like nobody else and his voice is in great shape after so many years. Enjoy!!!

I purchased this DVD hoping to get a full concert of the Butterfly. What I got was a concert but alot of images on the screen that disrupted the concert footage. When I see a concert, I don't like to see images over the players in the band trying to make the music groovy. With Iron Butterfly you just need to see all of the musicians all of the time--the music will take you there--not image processing. I saw the Butterfly in the sixties and also on the same tour that this was filmed--In San Ramon, Calif at a night club restaurant. Doug Ingle was superb as well as Lee Dorman and Ron Bushy (definitely improved drummer) The guitar player was great--doing his own version of guitar solos with a blues touch. The added piano player was a nice addition to the band. But I still miss Eric Brahn--the great guitar player on the big hit--In Gadda Da Vidda --too bad he has passed away. Check him out on other Butterfly albums where he sings-not bad. This is still a must for Butterfly fans--a great concert and a great collectors album Interviews were great and worth looking at. Get this one--it is good but not great.!!!!

I was really looking forward to seeing it as I had read that this formation of the band included Doug Ingle, Lee Dorman and Ron Bushy, three of the original four who recorded the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida LP. However after viewing I was let down. This project appears to be cheaply done beginning with the title menu as it fails to list the song "Ezy Rider". The performance looks like it was filmed in a small German club. For some reason there are fades after each song-maybe to distract the viewer from the relatively light audience response (applause) to the songs. The audio mix is rather thin on the bottom end, which I found very disappointing as Lee Dorman is a very melodic bass player. There is good use of multi-camera angles but I found it disconcerting that many times the camera remains focused on band members who are not soloing or singing.
The band is rather long in the tooth-seeing Ron Bushy play drums in his "wife beater" tee shirt with sagging arms and a beer gut does much to dispel the magic. He does a more than adequate drum solo and Doug Ingle is in excellent voice but for some reason the band doesn't seem much energized and the songs are taken slower than their original counterparts. The concert is rather short at 62 minutes with no encores.
The only extra on the disc is 40 minutes of solo interviews but the editing here is atrocious. It jumps from one person to another (sometimes in mid-sentence) and there is no continuity. The first interview begins with Doug Ingle playing a song on an acoustic guitar but the last interview is Doug telling us the story about the song he is about to play (which we previously heard with no explanation.) And what the hell is Steve Howe doing in these interviews anyway?? Lee Dorman spends his interview speaking about the wonders of playing open air festivals in the `60s and then explains why they opted out of playing Woodstock due to the excessive hassle of getting a helicopter to the festival grounds. Ron Bushy talks about wanting to write and record new material and getting the music out to the fans. There are two "new songs" included in the selections and if they were indicative of the best that was being written it is no surprise that 12 years later there still is no new Iron Butterfly CD. Wait to get this as a used DVD. I wouldn't mind paying under $10 for it but that is the best recommendation I can give.

It was a good show & much more enjoyable than a lot of the acts out there now. Also, it was great to see the original lineup, except for the guitar player. However, he played well & fit right in. I saw Iron Butterfly live years ago & I found this quite "up to snuff".

This was a fantastic concert. I had the chance to see Iron Butterfly on this tour at there concert in Berlin in 1997. This is a good remember of this concert.

I have owned three vinyl albums, two cassettes, an 8-track, and a CD of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, which I still consider the greatest rock album ever released. I have all their other albums as well, and listen to them regularly. They were supposed to play at this year's San Diego County Fair, but were replaced at the last minute with KC and the Sunshine Band, of all people. I had really hoped to see them perform live at last, and when I saw this DVD on Amazon, I figured this was going to be my best shot. It was done in 1997, in Europe, and features three of the original band members. They still play their instruments well, but the acid spark was missing. There were two new songs (okay, but not memorable), and the rest were from their first 4 albums. I was disappointed that two of the longest songs were from Metamorphosis, an album on which Doug Ingle tried to change the sound of the group. He succeeded, and to me the album ranges from a Blood, Sweat and Tears sound to a disturbing resemblance of Spinal Tap's "jazz fusion" period. On this video, their new guitarist apparently felt he had to put his stamp on the music, so the guitar solo on In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida sounds quite different from the original ablum or the Live version, and not necessarily better. The photography of the concert was not very spectacular either, and in some cases distracting. Ron Bushy in a wife-beater T-shirt, with his flabby arms and accountant haircut, looked very out of place, although his drumming was solid. The interviews included were poorly edited and provide little insight into the band. As the only available video of a live Butterfly concert, this is worth having for the die-hard fan, but it won't win over any converts.

I was happy to see this dvd, and found the contents to be interesting and dynamic throughout. Picture & audio are nice and clear, the extra bonus footage is certainly worth the time. This is great for the Iron Butterfly fan, as well as the casual 60's music fan. There are songs unique to this dvd, otherwise unreleased, so that is also a pleasant feature to the set list.

An excellent product of the Iron Butterfly!

-John Stout

IF YOU DIG IRON BUTTERFLY YOU WILL LOVE THIS CONCERT. DOUG INGLE IS BACK AND SOUNDING GREAT. BUY THIS AND ENJOY!