Customer Reviews

Live in Passio [VHS]

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I'm amazed and thrilled that such odd and beautiful fare is available...filmed in '91, here is 90 minutes of this great artist, alone on a stage, in a slightly wrinkled white shirt, weaving his magic.

I think his compositions are closer to German opera than any kind of popular music...his voice is not a pretty one, it may even not be a very good one, but it's powerful, expressive, and it communicates...if you can appreciate a singer like Lotte Lenya, you'll love Peter...it's incredibly theatrical, whether singing or in the almost spoken sections...the end of "Ushers Suite" is breathtaking.

the selections are: "The Future Now", "I Will Find You", "Ushers Suite", "Patient", "Curtains", "My Room", "(Something About) Ysabel's Dance", "Traintime", "Given Time", "A Way Out", and "Modern". Between the music are fragments of an interview that's fascinating. Subjects talked about are success,fans, loneliness (which he prefers to call "alone-ness"), identity, getting older, reality, religion, politics, England and dying...I like what he says is his greatest virtue: "tenacity...obsession".

This video captures Hammill during his Fireships/Usher tour of '92. While he toured with a band during this period, this particular show was completely solo with the man on gtr, kybrd, & vox. It's a great performance and the snippets of his interview are fascinating. The only (minor) complaint I have is that the editing omits much of the audience's applause and also does away with his onstage chit-chat between tunes. But all in all, this is a great document. Now if only someone would dig deep into the vaults and put together a film documenting the career of Hammill's legendary late 60s - 70s band Van Der Graaf Generator.

This is, to the best of my knowledge, the only video available from one of the greatest musician of our time, Peter Hammill. We see him here in the most challenging act: alone on the stage, singing and playing his own music with his own words. It is not for the faint-hearted. It is for those who are looking for a truly unique musical experience light years beyond contemporary rock and pop music.

Buy it - now that you still can