Paul McCartney - Live in Red Square

Description

Product Description Go backstage with the Emmy Award-winning, landmark concert film and documentary PAUL McCARTNEY IN RED SQUARE, and experience the hit songs, rare performance footage and exclusive interviews that marked this watershed moment in rock and roll history.Though the Beatles were banned from Russia in the 1960s, their music offered hope and inspiration to an entire nation for years. Finally, on May 24, 2003, Paul McCartney satisfied decades of anticipation with his first-ever concert in Russia--wowing a crowd of over 100,000 people in Moscow s Red Square.PAUL McCARTNEY IN RED SQUARE--plus Bonus Concert Paul McCartney: Live in St. Petersburg features live performances of more than 30 songs, including:Yesterday / We Can Work it Out / Fool on the Hill / I've Just Seen a Face / Two of Us / Maybe I'm Amazed / She's Leaving Home / Can't Buy Me Love / Birthday / Live & Let Die / Get Back / Getting Better / Hey Jude / Got To Get You Into My Life / Sgt. Pepper s Lonely Hearts Club Band / I Saw Her Standing There / Flaming Pie / Drive My Car / Penny Lane / Jet / Let It Be / The End / Band on the Run / Back in the U.S.S.R. / I ve Got A Feeling / Helter Skelter ... and moreDVD Features: Bonus Concert: Paul McCartney: Live in St. Petersburg; Behind The Curtain: Memories from Red Square; Featurette from THE HISTORY CHANNEL: Russia and the Beatles: A Brief Journey; Song Selection; Engilsh Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired... and more! desertcart.com The Beatles Anthology may be the motherlode for fans of the Fabs, but among other Beatle-related video offerings, only The Concert for George matches Paul McCartney - Live in Red Square for sheer emotional and musical impact. It's no coincidence that the latter two chronicle not just concerts but significant events--a memorial for Harrison (he had died a year earlier), and Sir Paul's first visit to the former Soviet Union. For the Russian audience, McCartney's appearance in Moscow is little short of a miracle. The Beatles were banned for decades by the Soviet government, which regarded their music as the epitome of Western decadence and propaganda, and the fans' only access to the group was through the occasional photo or black market album. Their reaction to his 2003 visit is a mixture of frenzy and rapture; in interview after interview, what one fan calls the Beatles' "gentle intervention" is credited with helping to bring down the whole Soviet system, simply because they represented a creativity and freedom that had been almost totally silenced. And that's all before McCartney plays "Back in the U.S.S.R.," which inspires a response that simply must be seen and heard to be believed. Elsewhere, Macca and his superb band perform a variety of Beatles tunes, along with some highlights from his solo career and stint with Wings. Considering the dozens of classics in the Lennon-McCartney catalogue, the majority of them never performed live by the group, he could hardly go wrong. Still, the choices are almost unerring; along with "Hey Jude," "Yesterday," and "Let it Be" are some unexpected treats (including "Getting Better" and "She's Leaving Home" from the Sgt. Pepper album, as well as "Fool on the Hill," "I've Just Seen a Face," and "Two of Us"). And that's not all: additional footage from a show in St. Petersburg features "Drive My Car," "Helter Skelter," and a powerful medley of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" and "The End." The sound and visuals are good, and the extra features (including a brief parallel history of the Beatles and the U.S.S.R. in the '60s) are interesting. No, the Beatles will never reform. But Paul McCartney - Live in Red Square ain't a bad substitute. --Sam Graham Review: Excellent show and very interesting look at Russia and the Russian people - Everyone in the US should see this DVD. Back in the 60s, the USSR was no place to be if you were a fan of the Beatles. They explain how people in the USSR risked imprisonment by making homemade records of Beatle's recordings, and how oppressive things were back then for artists, poets, and musicians, with western rock music banned. The modern-day concert is also incredible! Many great crowd shots showing Russians of all ages and all walks of life totally amped out of their minds and bursting with absolute joy to see Sir Paul and his band. Evidently, the Russians are not the evil, sinister. booger-picking boogiemen that our US mainstream media constantly says they are! The show itself is also excellent--with a great playlist! Definitely one for the shelf! This DVD makes you feel good and warms your heart--with positive vibes and music that makes all the political BS go away! One word of note, the cameras switch very quickly during the concert--showing a different shot angle every other second or so, so those who need to see Paul and the band perform for long periods on their musical instruments should probably move along and find another live DVD. Review: Back in the USSR -- more than just a concert. - When I was a kid in the former Soviet Union in rare breaks between reading "War and Peace" and "Crime and Punishment", I used to listen to the Beatles' records. What a relief! I didn't understand the language then, it was pure escapism. Today I am fluent in English and I think these songs are mostly tongue-in-cheek and sometimes even corny. The Beatles represented the suburban tastes, not the avant-garde. Be that as it may, this music is pleasant, tuneful, and kind of liberating. The DVD, recorded in 2003 is half-music video and half-documentary. I liked the documentary part: e.g. one couldn't miss how touched Paul McCartney was during his visit to a Russian orphanage. I didn't like the music video itself - very "jerky" editing, though it does have some stunning images of the St. Basil Cathedral and the Kremlin. The in-between documentary is excellent and could pass for a decent introduction to a history of the Soviet Rock-n-Roll underground. In this DVD each song is interspersed with interviews regarding the Beatles by the aging doyens of the Soviet Rock-n-Roll scene. They share memories and praise the Beatles. They praise it too much. It is not the Beatles who represented resistance to the Soviet System, but the Russian underground Rock-n-Roll movement itself. What the movement did was to replace the ossified, wooden language of the party Nomenklatura and the official "culture". It found right metaphors for the young generation. It expedited collapse of the Soviet system, which was linguistically-challenged and crickety-old. The Beatles was a nice escape, it is still is. But I am against groveling and kowtowing to the Western culture, like some of the Russian characters in this video. The Russians have a pretty strong culture of their own. Still, we can all enjoy Paul McCartney's performance.