The Hollies - Video History 1964-1988 [DVD]

All Music Guide

This twoCD set has everything a Hollies fan could want, videowise: an astonishing 56 songs/clips, adding up to about three hours of footage in all, stretching from 1964 to 1988 (though very little of it postdates the early 1970s). Almost all of their big hits are represented often in multiple versions and quite a few fairly obscure cuts are here too, like "Baby That's All," "Now's the Time," "Little Lover," "I've Got a Way of My Own," "Very Last Day," "Do the Best You Can," "Wings," and "Blowin' in the Wind." Too, the set's thoughtfully divided into a nearly twohour disc solely devoted to the Graham Nash years, and a postNash disc of 19691988 material (although actually Nash does appear on that disc once as part of a Hollies reunion). What's the downside? Well, it's not an authorized production, and while the image quality/transfer is usually pretty good, it's certainly not always firstgeneration. Too, there's nothing in the way of liner notes specifying exactly when and where these ...were shot, and the substantial majority of the clips are mimed, not live almost everything on disc two is lipsynced, in fact. And the preponderance of multiple versions three versions of a row of "Jennifer Eccles" and "Sorry Suzanne" at points, and five in all of "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother" will certainly serve as the litmus test of whether you're a serious Hollies fan. Still, there is some good live stuff here, particularly the live German television versions of "Look Through Any Window," "Very Last Day," "I Can't Let Go," "Stop Stop Stop," and "Bus Stop" that testify to both their skill as harmony singers and Tony Hicks' deftness as a guitarist. Some of the staged lipsynced clips hold some interest as well, like the cheesy color promo of a very young Hollies going through "Little Lover"; "Now's the Time," taken from some unidentified gradeB movie, in which leatherclad Hollies arrive and depart on motorbikes, singing all the while; and a "Blowin' in the Wind" that intersperses shots of a feverishly passionate topless couple that seem to have been airlifted right out of a stag film. - Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide Read more Less