Barclay James Harvest: Berlin - A Concert for the People (2010)



Video: NTSC, MPEG-2 at 3 197 Kbps, 720 x 480 at 29.970 fps | Audio: AC-3 2 channels at 224 Kbps, 48.0 KHz
Genre: Rock | Label: Eagle Rock | Copy: Untouched | Release Date: 23 Aug 2010 | Runtime: 79 min. | 4,28 GB (DVD5)

Barclay James Harvest was, for many years, one of the most hard luck outfits in
progressive rock. A quartet of solid rock musicians John Lees, guitar,
vocals; Les Holroyd, bass, vocals; Stuart "Wooly" Wolstenholme,
keyboards, vocals; and Mel Pritchard, drums with a knack for writing
hook-laden songs built on pretty melodies, they harmonized like the
Beatles and wrote extended songs with more of a beat than the Moody
Blues. They were signed to EMI at the same time as Pink Floyd, and both
bands moved over to the company's progressive rock-oriented Harvest
imprint at the same time, yet somehow, they never managed to connect
with the public for a major hit in England, much less America.
The group was formed in September of 1966 in Oldham, Lancashire. Lees
and Wolstenholme were classmates who played together in a band called
the Blues Keepers; that group soon merged with a band called the
Wickeds, which included Holroyd and Pritchard. They became Barclay James
Harvest in June of 1967 and began rehearsing at an 18th century
farmhouse in Lancashire. The psychedelic era was in full swing, and the
era of progressive rock about to begin the Moody Blues, in particular,
were beginning to cut an international swathe across the music world.
BJH cut a series of demos late in the year, and by the spring of 1968
they were signed to EMI's Parlophone label; in April they issued their
first single, a folky, faux-classical song called "Early Morning." The
group got caught up a year later in a corporate change at EMI, and it
was decided to move the more progressive-sounding groups on the label
onto a new label, coincidentally named Harvest. Their first release on
the new label was the single "Brother Thrush." In 1970, they released
their first album, Barclay James Harvest, which included several of the
early songs and displayed the group's strengths: filled with strong
harmony singing, aggressive electric guitar, and swelling Mellotron
parts, it set the pattern for their subsequent releases, with Lees and
Holroyd handling most of the songwriting. The album failed to chart, and
a subsequent tour was a financial disaster. Their second album, Once
Again (1971), was an artistic letdown, made up of rather lethargic
songs, although it did contain the superb, "Mockingbird." The band
recorded two more albums for Harvest, Short Stories (1971) and Baby
James Harvest (1972), and spent much of 1972 on the road, including an
unsuccessful tour of the U.S. They also released a pair of singles,
"When the City Sleeps" and "Breathless," under the pseudonym "Bombadil"
(a name taken from a J.R.R. Tolkien short story), all to no avail. 1973
saw them part company with EMI after one last single, "Rock and Roll
Woman."
Later in 1973, the band signed with Polydor, and their fortunes began
turning around, though only very gradually. Their first album for the
new label, Everyone Is Everybody Else, seemed promising: it was a more
powerful and coherent work than the group had ever released for EMI,
with Lees' guitar dominating on songs like "Paper Wings" and "For No
One." The album also presented the first example of the group
consciously paying tribute to (and satirizing) another group's hit song
"Great 1974 Mining Disaster" was a very heavy sounding tribute/satire of
the Bee Gees' "New York Mining Disaster 1941." (They would later do
work in this vein involving the Moody Blues.) The album failed to chart,
however, as did the single "Poor Boy Blues," with its gorgeous
harmonies.
It seemed at first as though BJH was locked once again into a cycle of
failure. Finally, in late 1974, their double-album Barclay James Harvest
Live broke through to the public the group was rewarded with a Top 40
placement in England and more sales activity on the European continent
than they'd previously seen. Their next album, Time Honoured Ghosts,
recorded in San Francisco, continued this gradual breakthrough when it
was released in 1975, reaching number 32 in England. A year later,
Octoberon reached the Top 20. An EP containing live versions of "Rock 'N
Roll Star" and "Medicine Man" became another chart entry in the spring
of 1977. By this time, EMI had begun to take advantage of the success of
the group's Polydor work, and released A Major Fancy, a John Lees' solo
album that had sat on the shelf for five years.
In 1977, they released Gone to Earth, their most accomplished album to
date, and by the end of the year the group found themselves playing to
arena-sized audiences. The release of XII in 1978 which managed to just
miss the British Top 30 was followed by the group's first (and only)
personnel shake-up. In June of 1979, Wolstenholme announced his exit
from the band in favor of a solo career; the group's final tour with
Wolstenholme was recorded and later released by Polydor under the title
The Live Tapes. He was replaced by two new members,
singer-keyboardman-saxophonist Kevin McAlea and
singer-guitarist-keyboardman Colin Browne; Wolstenholme released one
solo album, 1979's Maestro, to little success and then retired from the
music business for a time.
Their 1979 album Eyes of the Universe was a modest hit in England, but
its release marked a flashpoint in Barclay James Harvest's career in
continental Europe, especially Germany; on August 30, 1980, the band
performed a free concert in front of nearly 200,000 people at the
Reichstag in Berlin, which was filmed and recorded. A subsequent live
album, Concert for the People, became the group's biggest-selling album
in England, rising to number 15 in 1982. Turn of the Tide (1981) and
Ring of Changes (1983) were less successful, although the latter did
spawn their last charting single, "Just a Day Away." Their subsequent
Polydor albums, Victims of Circumstance, Face to Face, and Welcome to
the Show, charted ever lower in England, even as the group's popularity
grew in Europe. In 1988, they released a new live album, Glasnost, cut
at a concert in East Berlin.The group marked the 25th anniversary with a
concert in Liverpool, and toured to support a British Polydor
compilation, The Best of Barclay James Harvest.

Tracklist:
01. Berlin [7:32]
02. Loving is Easy [5:01]
03. Mockingbird [7:24]
04. Sip of Wine [4:46]
05. Nova Lepidoptera [5:21]
06. In Memory of the Martyrs [7:48]
07. Life is For Living [4:33]
08. Child of the Universe [7:18]
09. Hymn [5:21]
10. Berlin/Credits [2:23]

Extras: Time Honoured Tales
- Jonathan
- Titles
- Moongirl
- One Night
- Beyond The Grave

Features:
- Direct Scene Access
- Interactive Menu







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