Fans of Renaissance and Annie Haslam

BBC Sight & Sound in concert dvd

I came across this advert for the BBC Sight & Sound concert - http://www.ioffer.com/i/renaissance-in-concert-1977-dvd-195589804
Has anyone purchased this and if so what was the quality like?

Comment by Esa on October 10, 2011 at 8:27am: It's this BBC footage:

http://renaissance-fanfare.net/profiles/blogs/the-holy-grail-of-ren...

The DVD was authored by an unknown individual from the BBC footage obtained presumably through illicit means. It has been circulating as a bootleg torrent for the last year.

The quality is excellent -- you can see numerous examples in the above post, and on youtube.

Unfortunately, purchasing this DVD provides NO money to the band (or BBC) -- it is purely a bootleg, unauthorized release of unlicensed BBC footage.

Comment by Dave Harris on October 10, 2011 at 8:33am: That is a shame as I saw the concert at the British Film institute in London in 2005. It was excellent and well worth owning. I assume the BBC and Band have not released it due to it being uneconomical. Mind you, there have been other official dvd releases that are not as good quality wise.

Comment by Esa on October 10, 2011 at 8:48am: That is a shame as I saw the concert at the British Film institute in London in 2005.
Can you tell us more about this? I wasn't aware it had been shown publicly in recent years.

Comment by Jean-Luc on October 10, 2011 at 8:55am: It was not a public thing. Someone on the Northern Light Bulletin Board had organized this.

Some people made a rendez-vous at the BFI, presenting themselves as searchers. I think only

3 or 4 people went there, including myself.

Comment by Dave Harris on October 10, 2011 at 8:59am: Indeed it was me who arranged this. The quality of the video it was on was good and it had the benefit of the run off after the transmitte programme ended.

Comment by Jean-Luc on October 10, 2011 at 9:03am: Thank you again for that Dave. If I remember correctly, the copy I saw had a time code showing permanently. The copy in circulation today has not.

Comment by Dave Harris on October 10, 2011 at 9:05am: You have a good memory. It indeed did have a time code on. I am assuming that the bootleg is from a TV airing. In thwe UK some of these shows turn up on the BBC, but if it did, I must have missed it.

Comment by Jean-Luc on October 10, 2011 at 9:12am: I don't thing the bootleg is from a TV airing as it contains the complete performance of Prologue, long after the end of the credits. The first one to post an excerpt from that show (Carpet of the Sun), seemed to know how the copy had been illegally obtained from the BBC. See the comments about Ocean Gypsy, BBC Sight & Sound.

Comment by Dave Harris on October 10, 2011 at 9:23am: it all got a bit heated. It is a shame anyone feels the need to keep such things private,as these things should be freely available officially so that everyone, including the band and the BBC, can benefit. Up until a few years ago the BBC ran a department to track down and stop the illegal downloads, normally by organising an official release, once they found out there was enough interested.

Comment by Jean-Luc on October 23, 2011 at 11:17am: I also noticed this comment on Ocean Gypsy:

@TheHammond1986 This ought to have been made readily available on DVD years ago. Why should the best film of the classic Renaissance line-up be hidden away in private collections ? I had to "work" to see a tape of this concert in London a few years back and have hoped since that it would be more widely available.

RGCorris

Isn't he Richard, and didn't you see the video with him at the BFI? Someone had to see it with me but cancelled at the last moment. Anyway, after I saw the video I met Richard in a pub in London. Thank you again Dave for the brilliant idea you had at that time and for the work you made.