Strawbs - Live in Tokyo '75 / Grave New World: the movie (2003)

Originally planned as two separate DVDs. Live In Tokyo '75 and Grave New World - the movie these were issued as a single DVD, with additional bonus tracks.
Live in Tokyo '75: In 1975, Strawbs played a televised gig in Tokyo which was the first show ever to be beamed out simultaneously across all of Japan's islands. The classic Hero And Heroine/Ghosts line-up with Cousins and Lambert plus Hawken, Cronk and Coombes really rocks on this show, and provide an opportunity for many who never saw that line-up perfom live to relive those halcyon days.
Grave New World - the movie: Strawbs' epic album Grave New World was one of the first full-length rock videos, made in 1972, long before the ground-breaking "Bohemian Rhapsody" and latterly MTV made it essential for single releases to have videos to accompany them. The film was directed by Steve Turner, was recorded at Television International's studios in London in 1972. The video made intensive use of the then new technique of colour separation overlay, or chroma-keying as it is now known. The images generated at the Whitfield Street studio were recorded at Tvi's editing facility in Windmill Street. The film was edited by Barry Turned who later edited the promo for Bohemian Rhapsody. The edited master was then transferred via an optical printed to 35mm film stock for projection at cinemas, a hugely expensive operation even today.
I saw it as a double bill some time after its initial release, coupled with either Emerson Lake & Palmer's Pictures At An Exhibition, or Pink Floyd Live In Pompeii. The Cousins/Hooper/Ford/Hudson/Weaver line-up perform most of the tracks from GNW, against a variety of settings - gogo dancers, swirling psychedelia, and most notably - in the case of the stunning "New World" - some powerful and frankly disturbing images of riots, wars and famine, which underline the song's relevance not just to the troubles in Northern Ireland which inspired it, but to all forms of human suffering.

Tracks:
Live in Tokyo '75
1 Lemon Pie
2 Remembering/You And I (When We Were Young)
3 New World
4 Impressions Of Southall From The Train/The Life Auction
5 Syn Drum solo
6 Hero And heroine
7 Just Love
8 Down By The Sea

Grave New World - the movie
1 Benedictus
2 Hey Little Man - Thursday's Child
3 It Is Today, Lord
4 New World
5 The Flower And The Young Man
6 On Growing Older
7 Ah Me, Ah My
8 Tomorrow
9 Hey Little Man - Wednesday's Child
10 The Journey's End
11 Benedictus Reprise

Bonus tracks:
- "The New Era" - "Til The Sun Comes Shining Through" from a 1970 Granada TV show with a rare line-up: Cousins, Hooper, Wakeman and Lindsay Cooper. This rare footage shows the Strawbs in transition from the folk world to rock. Filmed at the Two Brewers in Manchester, this was their first appearance in Britain with Rick Wakeman, who was making his television debut (the band had just come back from Rick's debut gigs with the band in Paris at the Rock'n'Roll Circus which also doubled as Rick's honeymoon!). Coincidentally, it was Lindsay Cooper's last appearance with the group before John Ford and Richard Hudson joined as the rhythm section.
- Strawbs At Sea - a news interview from 1974 with Dave Cousins talking about the single "Grace Darling". The band then set sail on an RNLI lifeboat to visit the Longstone Lighthouse, home of Grace Darling.
- Hummingbird Preview - "The Young Pretender" from the Wakeman and Cousins Hummingbird album filmed in Rick's studio in Wembley in May 2002, with Dave, Rick and Ric Sanders.

Personnel:
- Dave Cousins (vcls, ac/el gtrs)
- Dave Lambert (vcls, el/ac gtrs)
- John Hawken (keybds)
- Chas Cronk (bs, vcls)
- Rod Coombes (drms, congas, perc)
––-
- Dave Cousins (vcls, ac/el gtrs, dulcimer, recorder)
- Tony Hooper (vcls, ac gtrs, autoharp, tamb)
- Richard Hudson (drms, sitar, tablas, vcls)
- John Ford (bs, vcls, ac gtr)
- Blue Weaver (org, pno, Mell, harm, clavioline)


Big thx to the original uploader