Product Details

• Actors: Emerson Lake and Palmer
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Sanctuary Records
• DVD Release Date: August 16, 2005
• Run Time: 250 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000A2XBFE
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #82,313 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

BEYOND THE BEGINNING - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

137 of 141 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Why? Why Companies do this?, October 11, 2005

By 

Ivan Brantes Salinas "Ivan Brantes" (Santiago, Santiago Chile) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Beyond the Beginning (DVD)

When I heard the news that this DVD was going to be released, I thought that my old ELP VHS tapes collection will rest in peace in a box down in my basement. I was wrong.

Bootleggers around the world must be very happy since their material still worth the money they ask for.

This DVD contains great material, but sometimes it is uncomplete, edited, and/or out of synchronization. Fans of the band has had some of this videos for a long time. Beyond the Beginning Documentary is worth to be seen. Now let's go for more serious review:

1. TAKE A PEBBLE (1970, THE BEAT CLUB TV SHOW)
Uncomplete! Beat Club session. They should have included at least The Knife Edge from the same sessions. This was available on "The Best Of Beat Club DVD - 1973 (sic)" (formerly on japanese Laserdisc, laterly on PAL DVD).

2. KNIFE EDGE (1971, BRUSSELS CONCERT)
This was already available on ELP "Masters from the Vaults" DVD. Please note this track is taken from two different shows, same venue.

3. RONDO / PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION (1970, FROM ISLE OF WIGHT)
This is the infamous "portion" of ELP included on Murray Lerner film "Message to Love" about the Isle of Wight Festival. Look for the european or japanese release of this DVD to see the full performance of Rondo. Maybe it's time to ask Murray Lerner for the complete ELP IOW festival performance (he's been releasing parts of his material: The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull)

4. RONDO (1971, BRUSSELS CONCERT)
This was already available on ELP "Masters from the Vaults" DVD

5. TARKUS - ERUPTION (1972, TOKYO CONCERT)
This is an abdridge third and at sometimes fourth generation video.

6. HOEDOWN (1973, MILAN CONCERT)
Great! maybe at a different speed (maybe due to transfer from video to digital) than the actual recording but a must have. I have only seen photos from this concert in italian magazine Ciao 2001.

7. TANK (1973, MILAN CONCERT)
Mmmmh! maybe this is Tank in disguise, a better name should have been "Drum Solo"

8. LUCKY MAN (1974, CALIFORNIA JAM): A bit out of synch. but great. Which bubble gum brand sponsored this concert?

9. KARN EVIL 9, 3RD IMPRESSION (1974, CALIFORNIA JAM)
Edited, uncomplete and cut!

10. TOCCATA (1974, AQUARIUS TV SHOW)
Great! An unwanted fade at the end but a must have.

11. I BELIEVE IN FATHER CHRISTMAS (1975, PROMO)
Uncomplete!

12. HONKY TONK TRAIN BLUES (1976, OSCAR PETERSON PIANO PARTY)
Er.. well I have never enjoyed much those Scott Joplin piano style improvisation that Keith used to play. Please note that Roy Babbington (ex Soft Machine) is on acoustic bass.

13. FANFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN (1977, PROMO VIDEO)
Great! An unwanted fade at the end but a must have.

14. PIRATES (1977, MONTREAL CONCERT)
Great moment and great effort with orchestra and the famous Palmer spinning drums kit. Previously available on VHS Live in Montreal

15. TIGER IN THE SPOTLIGHT (1977, POP ROCK TV SHOW)
Great! ELP doing a play back for this number.

16. WATCHING OVER YOU (1978, MEMPHIS CONCERT)
Out of synch and cut. Poor image quality.

17. TARKUS (1992, ROYAL ALBERT HALL CONCERT):
The band doesn't play anymore the full version of this great number. Fine performance.

18. TOUCH AND GO (1997, BUDAPEST CONCERT)
New song, for this new incarnation of ELP that goes pretty well.

Promo Videos:

1. AMERICA (THE NICE) - 1968 BEAT CLUB TV SHOW
Beautiful. They should have included The Nice live performance of Tim Hardin's "Hang on to a Dream" from the same TV show. This was available on "The Best Of Beat Club DVD - 1968" DVD - PAL format.

2. FIRE (THE CRAZY WORLD OF A. BROWN) - 1968 BEAT CLUB TV SHOW
Great!

3. 21ST CENTURY SCHIZOID MAN (KING CRIMSON) - 1969 HYDE PARK
I have never seen this one before, it's just a segment but it's great.

Bonus Footage:
1. ELP IN REHEARSAL 1973
Great! A must have. Keith leading the band from the basement.
2. "THE STORY OF THE ALBUM COVERS" DOCUMENTARY
Uncomplete. No info. on the first album cover, mentioning the original fold out cover of the early releases with a band photo inside. No info. on "Welcome Back..." triple fold out cover.

3. ELP AT BRANDS HATCH 1973
Useless!

4. INTERVIEW WITH BOB MOOG
It will always be a pleasure to listen to the master himself speaking (great stories!), but he is not a funny guy, he just created and built the famous MOOG synthesizers including the world acclaimed Mini MOOG.

DISC 2
CALIFORNIA JAM 1974, 44-MINUTE PERFORMANCE:
I have mixed feelings with release. First I'm happy to see an official release but I was waiting for a more PROFESSIONAL work not only a basic transfer from the original videos.

This is not the entire concert, it's not in the right order, in various segment is out of synchronization (voice - Sound). Even more, the last segment is taken from a different source (piano spinning and Great Gates of Kiev). Compare this one with top class Deep Purple C. Jam 74 Laserdisc and/or DVD, to understand what I'm talking about.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars a rip-off!!!, February 20, 2006

By 

goozemann (West Chester, PA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Beyond the Beginning (DVD)

Whoever was in charge of this travesty should be shot. The majority of the "songs" are just 2-3 minute "clips". And two of the Cal Jam clips, Lucky Man and Karn Evil, are shown twice...I mean, does that make any sense??!!
Buyer beware....just be aware that very few of the songs are actually full length!!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An astonishing look back to a better musical time, September 21, 2005

By 

Mick Guitar (Superior, CO United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Beyond the Beginning (DVD)

I'm a musician, and music fan in general. I love progressive rock (ELP, Yes, early Genesis -- the usual suspects) as well as many other types of rock, other genres, etc. This is probably my 5th ELP DVD, and it finally gives me what I've been waiting for -- the band in its magnificent early-to-mid 70's heyday. Never mind the grainy video quality and jumpy edits of some of the footage -- who cares? The point here is not to show off your plasma TV or surround system -- the point is to witness a historical artifact of sorts, a window back in time to an incredible (and sadly lost) era of true musicianship and vision in the world of popular music. It was a time when musicians (and yes, they were virtuoso musicians then, with no shame attached to the title) could experiment and create astonishingly fresh and innovative music, to a public that was not brainwashed by media empires, and who eagerly accepted the works of these gifted masters. It wasn't "uncool" to be a recognized craftsman with your instrument (or voice). It wasn't "required" to conform to the mass media's idea of "what pop should sound like". It wasn't necessary to stick to the same production techniques, the same in-your-face compression on every band's vocals, the same drum loops and sampled blasts of noise used over and over (loops and samples didn't exist; there were actual humans who actually played their instruments).

I won't attempt to repeat what has already been said about this DVD -- but one of the things that most impressed me was the Bonus Footage on Disc 1, called "ELP rehearsing in 1973" (!). It actually showed the band in the studio, painstakingly going over an intricate passage from Brain Salad Surgery's "Karn Evil 9, 2nd Impression. From our vantage point of the present, one tends to look back upon works like these as "immortal; set in stone; eternal". But the reality was that they were written, and orchestrated, and arranged, by actual guys in their early 20's, joking around in a studio, and coming up - note by note - with pieces of music that would be destined (unbeknown to them at the time) to become classic and, yes, immortal. It would be like "seeing" a young Mozart sitting in his music room, composing one his great works, one note at a time, and seeing just how "human" he really was -- how young, how silly, how brilliant. That's what this was like -- it injected a dimension of humanity and reality into a piece of music that I tend to think of as "larger than life".

It's also funny how we tend to think of our heroes as "aging as we do", and thus always being our contemporaries. Of course, in the chronological sense, we all do age on the same timeline. But the Keith Emerson that composed Tarkus was a young, brash guy in his mid-20's. The Greg Lake that penned "Still...You Turn me On" was - to me, now 46, just a kid. It's strange that a 46-year old's "heroes" are all "kids"...!

Buy this DVD. Don't get it for the immaculate picture or the razor-sharp editing -- they aren't there. Instead, look at it as a window into the musical past -- a past of stupendous freedom and creativity that, with the onset of an interconnected, Internet-based, individuality-smothering society, may never be again.