Eric Burdon and the Animals-Finally... (1991) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1991
Running Time	58:44
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Bill Getz
Studio Distributor	Delilah Music Picts Warner Vision	Starring	Eric Burdon Sammy Hagar Chas Chandler Hilton Valentine Brian Auger Alan Price
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Alan Price Eric Burdon Various

    Finally...Eric Burdon And The Animals is a well informed and detailed documentary chronicling the career of Eric Burdon, the founder and lead singer of the great, but volatile British band from the Sixties.

    There is a really satisfying depth to the material on offer here. Musical clips, television footage and behind the scenes film are combined with modern (1991) interview footage to give a genuinely solid account of the Animals' all-too-brief career. Modern contributions come from Burdon, Hilton Valentine and other members of The Animals, but also from Sammy Hagar (for no apparent reason, other than he likes the band) and Brian Auger who played with Burdon at the time this documentary was created.

    There is some great footage and despite its awful condition, the overall piece is quite enthralling. Organist Alan Price is conspicuous by his absence, and it would have been nice to hear his side of the story regarding his sudden departure from the band to go and join Bob Dylan. I must admit, my favourite part is a "fly on the wall" segment with a tired and p*****-off band arguing with their American publicist. This could have been the inspiration for This Is Spinal Tap and the character Bobbi Fleckman (Fran Drescher) - the fact that it is real shows just how well observed the latter movie was. There is a real feeling of deja vu on occasion when watching this disc. The story of "young innocent lads getting ripped off by unscrupulous managers and ending up penniless superstars" seems to be a part of modern musical folklore. Well, this is a typical example.

    The really humbling aspect of the Burdon/Animals story is how philosophical they all seem to be about it. There is no hint of bitterness - indeed Burdon seems to be genuinely grateful for the experiences he has lived through. He seems to be a man with a great sense of self - not prepared to dress himself up to please the kingmakers, and never prepared to compromise his high musical standards. He was a great talent in his day, and really "could have been a contender" had he been managed a bit better, and had he shown more self-restraint in the face of LSD and booze.

    Recommended for fans of The Animals and for those interested in the history of popular music during the Swinging Sixties. Shagadelic Baby!

Video

    Pick a video defect and you will be fairly certain of finding it present on this DVD. As the material was originally pulled together in 1991, I would assume this to be a VHS product, now transferred to DVD. Despite the generally pitiful quality of some of the source material, the entertainment value and information contained on this disc will not fail to thrill fans of the man or the band. Just...don't expect too much OK?

    The material is presented in a ratio of 1.33:1 and is therefore not 16x9 enhanced. This would certainly be the original aspect ratio of the source material. The disc is presented in NTSC format, so if you cannot view NTSC discs, then you will have to give this one a wide berth.

    The transfer clarity varies depending on the source material, but is fairly grainy at even the best of times. There are no really dark scenes to test the black levels or shadow detail, but the contrast is truly dreadful in some of the older footage with a bleached out negative revealing little more than hair and lips on some shots. Posterization is significant and frequent in the old black and white footage. On the modern (1991) footage the colours are adequately rendered (for an NTSC disc) and there is no colour bleeding evident. There is dot crawl and mosquito noise evident in the yellow opening titles. Skin tones are fine in the recent footage.

    Compression artefacts are not a significant problem - this disc actually has a very high average video transfer rate of 9.29 Mbps and in this respect the DVD is perfectly adequate. Edge enhancement is not an issue. There is some minor shimmer and pixelization in the image, particularly in the modern footage but significant aliasing is not obvious. The older footage suffers from analogue tape tracking errors on occasion.

    Film artefacts are more plentiful than screaming girls at an Animals concert - and somewhat less attractive. Given that much of the source material was probably dredged up from the back of beyond, and is up to forty years old, this is only to be expected. The more recent footage is relatively free from artefacts.

    The English subtitle track does a fair job of translating the broad Geordie accents and is not bad in terms of timing - it does edit a fair amount of the dialogue, but generally only non-essential stammering and repetition.

    Unsurprisingly, given the brief running time of 58:44, this is a single-sided, single layered disc (DVD 5), so there is no layer change to detect.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The overall audio quality of this is pretty mediocre to be honest. This is not a problem with the transfer - the modern footage is fine - it's all down to the nature of the forty year old source footage.

    The sole audio track is an LPCM stereo soundtrack in English, encoded at 1536 kbps.

    Dialogue is always clear in the modern footage. There were no problems with audio sync in the modern footage.

    The music is frequently muffled and there is a large amount of distortion and clipping present in the old footage. Despite the poor audio quality, the sheer power of Burdon's voice still shines through. What a massive talent he was in his day. There are clips from many of the truly great Animals tunes such as House Of The Rising Sun, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place and It's My Life. It is a shame that they are in such shoddy nick.

    The soundstage is totally frontal, with the surround speakers and subwoofer unused. The musical fidelity is poor throughout - a sad reflection of the limitations of the recording technology used, and the lack of preservation provided to the sources. It does the best it can - and for the most part it isn't actually painful to listen to...but occasionally it veers dangerously close. Could any more have been done, given the source material? Perhaps not. Just accept that this is a documentary rather than a music DVD and you will not be too disappointed.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no real extras on this disc.

Menu

    The menu is a silent photo of Burdon, the same as on the DVD cover. The slim choices are playing the DVD, activating subtitles or selecting one of the musical numbers in the Music Index. Cunningly, the index is simply a chapter index - each chapter starts with a musical clip.

    This DVD appears to be identical in Region 1. Buy whichever is cheaper.

    Finally...Eric Burdon And The Animals is a nice DVD for fans of the man or his band, in any of its many incarnations. There is little here for non-fans, but for historians of British rock of the Sixties it is worth a watch. It is good to see that the failing footage of The Animals has been preserved by transfer onto DVD. A nice way to spend an hour for Eric Burdon aficionados.

    The video quality is pretty awful at times, but acceptable given the age and obscurity of the source material. The transfer itself is fine.

    The audio quality is dire in some of the old material, but once again the transfer itself is fine.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall