I'm back in the USSR
You don't know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the US
Back in the US
Back in the USSR…
To the 100,000 members of the Russian audience, On May 24, 2003, the arrival of Sir Paul was a phenomenon. McCartney ended decades of anticipation with his first-ever trip and concert in Russia. The Beatles were banned for years by the Soviet government, which regarded their music as the embodiment of Western debauchery 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 clear; pure emotional elation, the crowd work themselves into a frenzy as Sir Paul takes to the stage. It was undoubtedly a special moment, being able to witness live, for the first time ever, the creativity and freedom that had been silenced in their country for so may years prior to the downfall of the Soviet Union. And it shows.
Paul plays an impressive set, spanning his entire musical career; obviously the set is leaning slightly in favour of a Beatles bias here, however we are still indulged in the highlights of his solo career and his time in Wings. The songs are so easy to sit through, the tracks chosen are gorgeous, I love the set lists (plural because there are two concerts)if*I was there, it would have been seriously amazing to witness, I think anyway; however, sometimes it doesn’t emphasise this, because of the way the set skips and is interrupted, and so often too.
I really enjoy convert DVDs, or as the box states; “A Concert Film”. They’re diverse and whether they’re any good or not, always worth a look in because as I have just said, they all have something to offer and they’re all different in the show themselves. If, like me, you like to watch your show as one long continuous show; (they come on, play a song, sort out their positions or instruments and play another- you get all the mid song kafuffles and sure it’s not much, but it links it all into one long flowing concert) you will be disappointed. That’s what I like about concert DVDs; it’s as close as you can be to being there yourself since the show passed. However in ‘Paul in Red Square’ we are shown several mid-show scenes of the band, or a brief interview, that goes on to further the whole ‘Beatles Ban’ in the Soviet Union, similar to those found on Green day’s recent live DVD effort, ‘Bullet in a Bible’. This seems to become somewhat of a trend dare I say? I was watching Madonna’s “I’m going to tell you a secret” on BBC the other night and I realized that this would fit the context of the Paul DVD far better, it’s a semi live show and it provides an insight into the people behind it all, something that would go well to watch for a while on television, an entertaining piece that contains information for those who don’t want to spend Sunday night watching a band play live the whole time, so we are left disappointed when they try and pass this off on to a DVD, particularly if you own such classics as the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Live at Slane Castle”.
These mid song interruptions occur frequently, after every song in fact and can be seen as highly annoying, but whilst admittedly, they are irritating, it is interesting to see peoples reactions and hear them recount their own tales of how they struggled to get hold of the contraband material. It brings a whole personal aspect into the story of the Soviet ban on The Beatles. At one point, we are watching a man who holds up a picture of the Fab Four and with a little light humour in his voice says, “This is all we had at the time, we would often sit around for hours and ask ourselves, who is Lennon, and who is McCartney? We didn’t know then. ” and it does seem to bring down the reality of the whole ban and we realize how real and fascinating this insight is, however we ask ourselves, “Why do we care? This would be great and really quite something on a documentary or program about the impact of The Beatles, but seeing as we have paid for this DVD to see Paul McCartney’s live show in Moscow’s Red Square, we are left a little disappointed and let down by this irrelevance, because a lot of them really are quite long. So here, I’m afraid you have to make up your own mind, whilst it is undoubtedly an interesting theme and something that takes you in as you watch,yet you wonder why they just didn’t stick it under the ‘bonus features’ menu.
The set is in no particular order, the order in which songs are played are scattered from throughout the night, if you watch the skyline it goes from light, to dark, to light to pitch black. This is only a minor trepidation and I’m sure it won’t bother those who don’t need to watch a DVD like one long smooth show; I just like the ‘authenticity’. The DVD just feels as though they’re telling you a story about Russia and The Beatles, interspersed with some live footage. Perhaps I’m only moaning because I bought it under false pretences that it would be a live concert, as such. Band on the Run for instance is highly disappointing, but it emphasizes the point I’m trying to make here well. We’re busying ourselves listening to one of our pleasant ‘interruptions’ and very quietly, as BACKGROUND music, we can hear ‘Band on the Run’ but with a slight twist, hang on… what’s that? It’s live. Oh yes, that would be it, half the song is background music to our historian friend telling us of The Beatles’ importance in the downfall to communist Russia. It finishes just in time for us to catch the second half of the song, which many will find disappointing.
As for the performances themselves, the otherwise obvious other half to a good concert DVD, you can tell that it is just stunning. Yet sadly, we miss it. During the brief moment that we are granted to see Sir Paul just as he yells out, “Can’t buy me Love” to bring in the song, we are thrown backwards with the just the buzz surrounding the song, and we think to ourselves “Oh yeah, this one’s gonna Rock!” but before he even finishes the refrain on the word ‘Love’ the camera has panned outwards, Paul is now quite a small little red shirted figure on the stage. Now if you think about the opening to the song in question, and you sing to yourself those famed words, you think, just how short a time it is between that sentence. In fact, the scene changes twice during the word ‘Love’, and you think that’s just to create a montage to build up the atmosphere surrounding such a song and when “I’ll buy you a diamond ring my friend..” is sung, the camera will return to normal. Only it doesn’t. It jumps around like a three year old who has had clearly way too much sugar. And that’s pretty much what ‘Paul in Red Square’ is like nearly the whole way through. Arguably there are some times when the camera work is spot on, namely during the piano ballads, but the screen just cannot stay in one place long enough to warrant a good show for the rest of the time.
However, if you’re easily taken in by respectable presentation, it comes very well polished. The red themed box and case, with black and white is striking, the DVD is very easy to navigate; ‘Red Square concert’ ‘St. Petersburg concert’ ‘Bonus Features’ ‘Audio’ and ‘Subtitles.’ And to boot, it has a very nice little booklet, pretty pointless as it just contains a few pictures but all very well anyway. I guess my point is, for your money, the only good thing about this DVD is the presentation. And that’s sad.
But on a lighter note, the amount of material on here, whether you want to include the extras and mid-song interviews or not, is amazing. In the concerts alone there are enough songs between the two to keep you entertained, in that sense, you don’t feel like it is a complete cop out and as mentioned what we do manage to view about the performance is spectacular. The crowds are really worked up (we know this due to the sheer amount of times we are shown them dancing and clapping, waving and singing.) Paul and his band of merry men take most of the opportunities given to step back from the mike when possible and dance around and generally put on a show, ok again it’s not great because they’re stuck behind their mikes a lot of the time but personally I just thought it was great anyway. “Hey, this man was in The Beatles type thing.”
Also the St. Petersburg concert isn’t such a let down as the ‘Red Square’ concert because things run more smoothly, there’s no commentary, but this time, there’s no hype as such, this concert feels smaller than the last and yes, it does have a smaller set but this time it does flow and it IS a concert DVD, but its not nearly as good a show as the Red Square. Somehow, they just couldn’t get it right.
It’s sad and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was terribly disappointed, but I guess it’s just one of those ‘facts of life’ that this DVD lacks in many, many places and had potential to do oh so much better.
Overall Rating : 2.5/5
DVD Features:
DVD Release Date: June 14, 2005
Run Time: 160 minutes approx
Available Subtitles: English
Available Audio Tracks: English (DTS 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
Behind the Curtain: Memories from Red Square
Featurette from the History Channel: Russia and the Beatles: A Brief Journey
