On the first glance on the cover of this DVD release one might think to see a live taping of TD's concert at Coventry Cathedral, but actually it contains a half-hour concert montage of performance footage heavily processed by video effects. This is how it was broadcast on BBC2 on October 3rd, 1976 -- almost a year to the day after the Coventry concert. Tony Palmer had filmed the concert and then edited the shots to excerpts from TD's then new album Ricochet. Unfortunately, the original soundtrack was lost along with the footage of the entire concert.
The audio mix is standard mono and no other details are provided of the event, execept of the following notes on the backside of the DVD cover:
"In December 1974 Tangerine Dream were invited to play in the grand setting of Rheims Cathedral, a move certainly seen at the time as groundbreaking. Beacause of this, they were then invited to perform in the cathedrals of York, Liverpool and Coventry. The tour attracted unprecedented coverage in the media, especially at Cobentry Cathedral, an iconic building rising like a Phoenix on the ruins of the old cathedral bombed to bit by the Germans in 1940 (Tangerine Dream is, after all, a German band) as a celebration of peace and reconciliation, as well as a lasting showcase for great contemporary art. The nave is dominated by a gigantic tapestry by Graham Sutherland, the main door dwarfed by a sculpture of St Michael & The Devil by Jacob Epstein, and the consecration in 1962 heard the first performance of Britten's incomparable War Reqiem. To their lasting credit, Tangerine Dream contributed to this celebration. The film released now for the first time on DVD will be welcomed by the massive Tangerine Dream fan base, and also seen for what it is -- a meeting of cultures and for a brief moment in time, a time where the past met both the present and the future."
In fact, reception of this DVD release was quite mixed, as many expected to see a complete live concert, including previously unheard music and hence were extremely dissappointed by the contents of this release.
From a technical standpoint, Palmer's montage is very much of its time. Combining psychedelic effects with the cathedral's own architectural and artistic imagery, Palmer created an extended music video for a band whose performances, at that time, consisted of expressionless manipulation of analog synthesizers. But the video effects and transition filters, rendering chunky, blocky, op-art geometric shapes in blazing primary and purplish colours, may be distracting to those wanting a precise and complete record of the original concert. And of course, the edits do not sync with any performance close-ups at all.
Anyway, given the fact that only few video material from that era does exist at all, those who never attended the band's concerts in the seventies will find fascinating shots of the massive gear used to create the group's sound, that is surrounding Edgar Froese, Chris Franke and Peter Baumann.
