Latest DVD releases reviewed
THE RAMONES
Raw
BMG ***
LAA-BAA-TAA-MEE, laa-baa-taa-mee. Anyone who ever saw The Ramones live will know what a mindless joy it was to hear Dee Dee count in the songs, to watch Johnny play low-slung bass and to look at Joey punch the air and miss. Sadly, the three aforementioned original members of this incredibly influential NY band aren't around anymore, but this DVD will make up in part for their absence with five - yes, that's five - hours of video scrapbooks. It's quite exhaustive (if not exhausting), so a dip-in/dip-out approach is advised: vintage concert footage, rare television appearances, deleted scenes, Easter eggs, home videos, celeb guests extolling the band's virtues - it's all here in glorious, dumb day-glo. It's also captioned for the hearing-impaired, which is good news for those who stuck their heads in the amp bins at the State Cinema in Phibsboro all those years ago. Ahem. Isn't that where we came in? Tony Clayton-Lea
FLEETWOOD MAC
Live in Boston
Warner Vision ***
This could be more accurately titled Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks Live in Concert. Since Christine McVie stopped touring with the band, the divorce 'n' drugs group with the tangled musical history have continued as a quartet and are none the less effective. Culled from two nights of their US tour last year, the band bravely focus on material from their not-that-bad-at-all last album, Say You Will. Nicks can still belt them out in that strangely fractured girly vocal of hers, while Buckingham knows (just about though) when to pull the plug on his "look at me" guitar solos. And not since Watts/Wyman has there been (for this genre of music) a better live rhythm section than John McVie and Mick Fleetwood - although points have to be deducted for a thoroughly unnecessary drum solo towards the end. Highlights include Nicks giving it socks on Rhiannon and Stand Back, and there are some judicious pickings from their back catalogue. Pity there isn't more from their much misunderstood Tusk album. Brian Boyd
