The Concert for Bangladesh

Да, действительно, Hong-Kong очень удачно перенес фильм в новый формат. Качество великолепное и звук приличный.
http://beatlestrade.narod.ru/dvd/BanglaDesh.htm

Но в GEMA есть Mr. Tambourine Man
Д.

что-то сильные сомнения в качестве гонконгского DD 5.1 - откуда у них исходники для тотального ремастеринга?.. наверняка фантомная 5-каналка. Держусь, жду официального релиза. Потому и Let It Be до сих пор не взял :-)))

"Concert For Bangladesh" DVD cover art and disc contents:

Title : The Concert For Bangladesh, George Harrison and friends
Release Date : 24th October 2005
Certificate : Exempt
Format : DVD Retail

Contents
DISC ONE The Concert For Bangladesh 1971

Bangla Dhun
Wah-Wah
My Sweet Lord
Awaiting On You All
That’s The Way God Planned It
It Don’t Come Easy
Beware Of Darkness
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
Youngblood
Here Comes The Sun
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
Blowin’ In The Wind
Just Like A Woman
Something
Bangla Desh

DISC TWO The Concert For Bangladesh 2005

Documentary

The Concert For Bangladesh Revisited, with George Harrison and friends

Previously Unseen Performances

If Not For You
Come On In My Kitchen
Love Minus Zero/No Limit

Mini Features

The Making Of The Film
The Making Of The Album
The Original Artwork
Recollections - August 1st 1971
Photo Gallery
Take A Bow

Picture : Full Frame, 4:3 PAL, Colour
DVD Sound : Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby 5.1 Surround, DTS
DVD Region Code : 2,3,4,5
DVD Disc Format : 2 x DVD-9
Running Time : 2 hours 51 minutes approximately
Catalogue Number : 0349-70480-2 (UK info)
UPC Number : 0603497048021 (UK Info - US info coming)

For the first time, the Beatles sing the Stones
Published: 14 August 2005

For any rock fan it is a unique performance. What is thought to be the only footage of a Rolling Stones track being played by members of the Beatles is to be seen for the first time after being hidden in the vaults for decades.

George Harrison and Ringo Starr were filmed as they jammed a version of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" during a rehearsal at Madison Square Garden. They are part of a mini supergroup, which also includes Eric Clapton and Leon Russell, seen practising for the legendary Concert for Bangladesh which took place in New York in 1971. The footage has not been seen since it was recorded on the eve of the show, and is to be released on DVD on 24 October.

The people behind the release came across the low-key performance as they trawled through around 150 hours of material which has been kept in the archives of the Beatles' company Apple. "We were lucky enough to discover this fantastic rehearsal footage which had just been sitting in the archive for 34 years. It was an incredible treasure trove," said the DVD's director and editor, Claire Ferguson.

Although the Rolling Stones recorded Beatles songs, the reverse was not true. Indeed, it was when Mick Jagger and his bandmates recorded a version of "I Wanna Be Your Man", written for them on the spot in 1963 by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, that they decided to write their own songs because they realised that was where the money could be made.

Jagger and Keith Richards also added their backing vocals to the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" in June 1967, with Jagger doing the same again days later when the song was performed during the first worldwide live satellite broadcast, Our World.

Harrison's hastily arranged Concert for Bangladesh was the first fundraising concert on such a scale and paved the way for 1985's Live Aid.

For any rock fan it is a unique performance. What is thought to be the only footage of a Rolling Stones track being played by members of the Beatles is to be seen for the first time after being hidden in the vaults for decades.

George Harrison and Ringo Starr were filmed as they jammed a version of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" during a rehearsal at Madison Square Garden. They are part of a mini supergroup, which also includes Eric Clapton and Leon Russell, seen practising for the legendary Concert for Bangladesh which took place in New York in 1971. The footage has not been seen since it was recorded on the eve of the show, and is to be released on DVD on 24 October.

The people behind the release came across the low-key performance as they trawled through around 150 hours of material which has been kept in the archives of the Beatles' company Apple. "We were lucky enough to discover this fantastic rehearsal footage which had just been sitting in the archive for 34 years. It was an incredible treasure trove," said the DVD's director and editor, Claire Ferguson.

Although the Rolling Stones recorded Beatles songs, the reverse was not true. Indeed, it was when Mick Jagger and his bandmates recorded a version of "I Wanna Be Your Man", written for them on the spot in 1963 by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, that they decided to write their own songs because they realised that was where the money could be made.

Jagger and Keith Richards also added their backing vocals to the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" in June 1967, with Jagger doing the same again days later when the song was performed during the first worldwide live satellite broadcast, Our World.

Harrison's hastily arranged Concert for Bangladesh was the first fundraising concert on such a scale and paved the way for 1985's Live Aid.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/news/article305782.ece

Film shows Beatles playing Stones

Unseen footage of members of the Beatles singing material by pop rivals the Rolling Stones is to be released.

Beatles George Harrison and Ringo Starr were filmed playing Jumping Jack Flash before Harrison's New York Concert for Bangladesh, to be released on DVD.

Guitarist Eric Clapton joined in as they prepared for the 1971 benefit gig.

"We were lucky enough to discover this fantastic rehearsal footage which had just been sitting in the archive for 34 years," said editor Claire Ferguson.

'Treasure trove'

"It was an incredible treasure trove," she told The Independent newspaper.

Jumping Jack Flash was a number one hit for the Rolling Stones in 1968.

Although the Rolling Stones recorded Beatles songs, and members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards sang backing vocals on their hit All You Need Is Love, the Beatles did not record Rolling Stones material.

The late George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden raised money for Unicef and was widely regarded as the first large-scale fundraising concert.

Also featuring Bob Dylan and Ravi Shankar, the concert is due to be released on DVD in October.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4150810.stm

Dylan and Harrison 1971 duet unearthed
By Nina Goswami
(Filed: 28/08/2005)

Unseen footage of George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton rehearsing for the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, has been uncovered.

The film clips show Harrison, the Beatle who died in 2001, and Dylan, the singer-songwriter, experimenting with songs for the concert - the first ever superstar benefit.

One of these was Dylan's If Not For You. Although the song never made it to the stage on August 1, 1971, it is included in a reissue of the Concert for Bangladesh - as a film and album.

Jonathan Clyde, one of three producers of the reissue, felt "like a fly on the wall" when he first watched Dylan and Harrison rehearsing the song 34 years ago.

"If Not For You has great charm because Bob and George are great friends. As it's just rehearsals, they're practically playing to each other - not to anyone else - and you can see them cracking up in the middle of it and trying to get the lyrics and harmonies right. It's very personal and there's a real intimacy about it that is very poignant," he said.

Additional footage of Dylan, not seen since 1971, was also unearthed. The singer, for reasons unknown, only performed Love Minus Zero/No Limit at the afternoon concert - the first of two to take place.

As a result it was not included in the original film or album. The producers of the new DVD and CD, however, were so mesmerised by it they decided to include it.

The clips also give an insight of what was happening back stage.

Harrison says of Dylan: "He wasn't sure he was coming because the night before when we got to Madison Square Garden he saw all these cameras and microphones in this huge place and said, 'This isn't my scene. I can't make this.'

"On stage, I had a little list on my guitar, which had Bob with a question mark and it got to that point and I looked round to see if Bob was going to come on or not.

"He was so nervous and he had his harmonica on and his guitar in his hand and he was walking on to the stage thinking, 'It's now or never.' "

The reels had been gathering dust for more than 30 years in the Apple film archive in California.

The films were discovered after Harrison decided in 2000 that it was time to reissue the film and CD of the concert to raise additional funds for Unicef.

A spokesman for Apple, the Beatles record company, said: "George started playing with the audio a little bit and with the mixes. Then he spoke to Apple about the DVD, so we were starting to plan it but then sadly he became ill and it went on the back-burner - until such time as Olivia, his wife, wanted to actually fulfil this wish that he had."

The Concert for Bangladesh DVD and CD will be released on October 24.

2Pit Best:

>Кстати, а кто-нибудь знает, почему Пол Маккартеи
>и Мик Джаггер не смогли приехать на этот концерт?

Маккартни не просто не смог, а НЕ ЗАХОТЕЛ принять участие в этом концерте. О причинах этого он поведал в интервью журналу Circus (март 1972 года).

George Harrison & Friends: Concert For Bangladesh - Deluxe Edition (2 Discs) (Unibox)
Due for release on 24/10/2005

The famous fundraising concert for Bangladesh featuring George Harrison and a whole host of his celebrity music friends on the star-studded set list.

Disc 1 - The Concert For Bangladesh, 1971):
1. Intro by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar
2. Bangla Dhun
3. Wah-Wah
4. My Sweet Lord
5. Awaiting On You All
6. That's The Way God Planned It
7. It Don't Come Easy
8. Beware Of Darkness
9. Band Introduction
10. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
11. Jumpin' Jack Flash
12. Young Blood
13. Here Comes The Sun
14. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
15. It Takes A Lot To Laugh/It Takes A Train To Cry
16. Blowin' In The Wind
17. Just Like A Woman
18. Something
19. Bangla Desh

Special Features
Disc 2 - The Concert For Bangladesh, 2005:
(from rehearsals) 'It's Not For You - Bob Dylan and George Harrison
(from the soundstage) 'Come On In My Kitchen' - Leon Russell, George Harrison & Eric Clapton
(from the afternoon show) 'Love Minus Zero/No Limit' - Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Leon Russell and George Harrison
'The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison & friends': a fascinating documentary about the background to the two shows
Featurettes
64-page booklet
Original film poster
10 postcards
Apple logo clingzee
Handwritten lyrics to the song 'Bangla Desh'
George Harrison UNICEF fund insert

George Harrison & Friends: Concert For Bangladesh (2 Discs) (Digipack)
Due for release on 24/10/2005

The famous fundraising concert for Bangladesh featuring George Harrison and a whole host of his celebrity music friends on the star-studded set list.

Disc 1 - The Concert For Bangladesh, 1971):
1. Intro by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar
2. Bangla Dhun
3. Wah-Wah
4. My Sweet Lord
5. Awaiting On You All
6. That's The Way God Planned It
7. It Don't Come Easy
8. Beware Of Darkness
9. Band Introduction
10. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
11. Jumpin' Jack Flash
12. Young Blood
13. Here Comes The Sun
14. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
15. It Takes A Lot To Laugh/It Takes A Train To Cry
16. Blowin' In The Wind
17. Just Like A Woman
18. Something
19. Bangla Desh

Special Features
Disc 2 - The Concert For Bangladesh, 2005:
(from rehearsals) 'It's Not For You - Bob Dylan and George Harrison
(from the soundstage) 'Come On In My Kitchen' - Leon Russell, George Harrison & Eric Clapton
(from the afternoon show) 'Love Minus Zero/No Limit' - Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Leon Russell and George Harrison
'The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison & friends': a fascinating documentary about the background to the two shows
Featurettes
32-page booklet

Laser Disc

Трек-лист

Оборот

From Bill DeYoung on the new "Concert for Bangla Desh" DVD:

I watched the new DVD of "The Concert for Bangla Desh" last night, and I'm here to tell you the news is all good. They've done a magnificent restoration job on it. It's so bright and clear, it looks as if it could have been shot last month. Apparently the film was shot on 16mm in 1971 and "blown up," which is why it was alwats so murky and grainy - frankly, I always thought it was difficult to sit through. This new one is pristine - you can see everyone and everything (for example, I was finally able to spot Tommy, Pete, Joey & Mike sitting in the background; never saw them before). The stereo is breathtaking. All in all, it's a very worthy companion to the "Concert for George" DVD - the quality is that good.

The bonus material includes "Making of the Film" and "Making of the Album" mini-docs, a lengthy documentary on the event itself (everyone from Ringo to Clapton to Klaus Voormann to Neil Aspinall to Bhaskar Menon is interviewed), there are scenes from the press conference, Geraldo Rivera's local-news coverage of the fans buying tickets, and shots of the NYC film premiere (we briefly see JWO Lennon going in !)

The "new" clips are "If Not For You" with George & Bob (rehearsal, but it's very good), Leon Russell & George harmonizing on "Come On In My Kitchen" (rehearsal, also very good) and Dylan's live tune "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" with G, R and Leon.

This masterful restoration and classy menu give me great hope for "Let it Be," when and if...

Bill DeYoung
Entertainment editor
Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers

http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/news/611releasenews.html

George Harrison And Friends: The Concert For Bangladesh
Starring: George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton
Directed by: Unknown
George Harrison And Friends: The Concert For Bangladesh Reviewed by Colin Jacobson, DVD MOVIE GUIDE
Back before Live Aid, Farm Aid, Live 8 and all the other benefit concerts, we had 1971’s “The Concert for Bangladesh”. Organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar to provide relief for Pakistani refugees, this event actually consisted of two concerts, both staged on August 1, 1971. Performed at Madison Square Garden, there was an evening show as well as a matinee that was added when the nighttime event sold out quickly.
The shows didn’t boast a roster of participants that competes with massive outings like Live Aid or Live 8, but it still holds up very well. Harrison acted as the main performer and ringleader. This was a big deal since Bangladesh was his first-ever live solo concert. In another notable coup, Harrison enticed Bob Dylan to return to the stage for the first time in a while.
As for other big names, Eric Clapton played guitar while Ringo Starr pounded on the drums. Starr also sang lead on “It Don’t Come Easy”, but Clapton took no vocals. Shankar did an opening number, while second-tier performers Billy Preston and Leon Russell added their own tracks.
Make no mistake, however: Bangladesh was Harrison’s night to shine. Of the 16 songs, half of them feature Harrison lead vocals. Dylan accounts for one-fourth of the show, while the other four each get one turn in the spotlight. (Shankar’s track is a particularly long one, though; while cut down to a manageable 15 minutes or so here, I’ve heard that the original stage performance was much longer.)
George does just fine for himself, though I must admit I think the show reaches its peak with a few of the guest spots. I absolutely adore Ringo’s take on “It Don’t Come Easy”. Arguably his best song, it really shines on stage, particularly when we get a tight, biting guitar solo. Preston takes us to church with “That’s the Way God Planned It” and provides one of the concert’s most fun moments when he dances at the front of the stage. Russell’s medley of “Jumping Jack Flash/Youngblood” doesn’t define the two songs, but he makes them work on his own terms.
Dylan’s short set provides the evening’s biggest disappointment. Whether due to nerves or some other factor, Dylan never quite coalesces with the accompaniment of Harrison on electric guitar and Russell on bass. The performance improves a little as it progresses, but it doesn’t become anything noteworthy or memorable. Were it not for the Shankar set, Dylan’s pieces would be the most skip-worthy of the night.
Back on the 3-LP release of Bangladesh, Shankar’s “Bangla Dhun” filled side one. If I had a nickel for every fan who listened to that side more than once… I’d have about 85 cents. I mean no disrespect for the music, but it’s simply not my cup of mango lassi. At least Shankar’s set offers the evening’s most amusing moment. The clueless crowd applauds after the musicians briefly tune their instruments; that inspires a quip from Shankar about how if they liked that, they should really dig the actual music.
When we examine the concert’s headliner, we find that Harrison did just fine for himself, but not any better than that. Half of his set featured tunes from his then-recent – now classic – 1970 album All Things Must Pass. We also got three Beatles numbers via “Something”, “Here Comes the Sun”, and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” as well as his brand-new benefit single “Bangla-Desh”.
“Weeps” stands as the only true disappointment of the Harrison numbers, largely because Clapton fails to dig into the solo with the expected fervor. Otherwise, everything sounds good, but not great. “Something” benefits from the large band the most, as the extra musicians give it a nice sweeping quality. I also like the take on “Beware of Darkness”, especially when Harrison turns it over to Russell for a verse.
All around, this is a quality performance. Harrison pulled it together in very little time, a fact that makes the good aspects of the music all the more impressive. As a concert movie, however, it’s nothing special. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, though. Indeed, Bangladesh avoids many of the pitfalls that mar modern performance flicks. We get no quick cutting or gimmicks, as the action focuses strongly on the musicians and the stage.
It’s all just quite bland, and some technical problems mean frustrating choices. For instance, during “It Don’t Come Easy”, we see a close-up of Ringo during the entire solo. I assume no good shot of the guitarist was available, but it’s still irritating.
Plenty of sloppy camerawork abounds. We see iffy focus at times and ugly angles. That’s all part and parcel of a loosely organized shoot, though.
In the end, there’s much more to like here than to criticize. The Concert for Bangladesh presents a surfeit of great music and strong performances. Despite messy technical work, it offers an adequate depiction of a legendary event.
A few trivia notes, again thanks to Eight Arms to Hold You:
-Dylan played “Mr. Tambourine Man” at the evening performance. This appears on the album but not in the movie. Since we also don’t find it in this package’s extras, I would guess that there’s no useable film footage of it.
-Many anticipated a full Beatles reunion. Apparently this was never going to happen since McCartney flatly refused, allegedly due to animosity over legal wranglings. However, Lennon agreed to come but backed out due to a misunderstanding between himself and Harrison over Yoko’s role in the proceedings.

-Mick Jagger also attempted to attend but was unable to get a visa to enter the US.
The DVD Grades: Picture B-/ Audio A-/ Bonus C
The Concert for Bangladesh appears in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; due to those dimensions, the image has not been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Since the movie was shot on 16mm film and took place more than 30 years ago, don’t expect visual dynamics from the transfer. That said, it looked pretty darned good considering its origins.
Sharpness varied a bit, though that occurred largely due to focus problems. Bangladesh wasn’t a massively orchestrated concert flick, so the filming took place on the fly. In fact, according to Eight Arms to Hold You - an excellent look at the solo Beatles – “manning the film cameras was a crew of Madison Square Garden technicians described as being ‘more familiar with [filming] sporting events. This raised a series of problems with the post-production of the film, such as one camera having cables hanging in front of the lens and another being out of focus the entire time.”
Given all those constraints and problems, Bangladesh looked pretty darned good. Sharpness was erratic. Close-ups manifested reasonably solid definition and delineation, but wider shots turned iffier. Those presented moderate softness and never seemed terribly concise. At least no issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I noticed no signs of edge enhancement.
Source flaws were delightfully absent. You’ll notice a fair amount of grain throughout the film, but that’s inevitable. Bangladesh was shot 16mm, and that format tends to be pretty grainy. The grain was never a real distraction, though, and the rest of the movie lacked any form of specks, marks, or other defects.
Don’t expect a feast of colors from Bangladesh, for it stayed with a restrained palette. Lighting offered most of the hues, and they were somewhat messy. The tones came across as well as I might expect, but they tended to be a bit on the heavy side, especially when the stage production used red lighting. Black levels didn’t excel, but they seemed reasonably deep and solid. Shadow detail was a bit dense but worked acceptably well. No one will view Bangladesh as a dynamic visual presentation, but I thought the transfer was quite good given the limitations of the source material.
While I didn’t expect much from the picture, I went into The Concert for Bangladesh with high hopes for its audio. Happily, the Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks lived up to my expectations. I thought the pair were very similar. The DTS mix was slightly warmer, but otherwise I heard nothing to differentiate the pair.
Bangladesh offered a nicely open and spacious soundfield. Across the front, instrumentation spread appropriately and distinctly. The instruments were cleanly defined in their specific spots. Vocals stayed centered and didn’t bleed to the sides. The music sounded nicely integrated and airy, as the songs meshed together well and demonstrated a solid stereo image.
Surrounds mostly served to reinforce the forward audio. A lot of stereo crowd noise cropped up back there, and the rear speakers provided a sense of concert hall ambience as well. The mix avoided gimmicky material and it stuck with an involving stereo presentation for the most part.
The DVD presented excellent sonics. Vocals always came across as natural and accurate. I noticed no edginess or distortion as the singing appeared lively and distinct. Guitars chimed appropriately while drums snapped. Bass response sounded solid. Low-end was tight and deep, and I noticed no ill-defined or excessively loud elements. Everything about these mixes bolstered the presentation; I thought Bangladesh sounded great.

All of the DVD’s extras appear on Disc Two. These open with a 44-minute and 45-secon documentary called The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited. This program combines film clips, archival materials, and interviews. We get period comments from George Harrison along with modern remarks from musicians Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar, Jim Keltner, Eric Clapton and Leon Russell, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, UNICEF UK president Lord Puttnam, production manager Jonathan Taplin, Apple Corps’ Neil Aspinall, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Sir Bob Geldof and US Fund for UNICEF president Charles Lyons. The show covers the problems in Bangladesh and the origins of the concert, organizing the event and recruiting the musicians, rehearsals and the performances, problems getting Clapton to show up and his issues at the time, Bob Dylan’s appearance, Shankar’s portion of the concert, the atmosphere in the rock world at the time and the shows’ impact on Bangladesh, music and future charity work.
On the negative side, “Revisited” includes too many long movie snippets. After all, we already own the concert film, so we don’t need to see all those clips. I don’t think the show digs into its subject with great depth either, but it offers a decent overview. Some of the anecdotes about Clapton and Dylan are good, and we learn a reasonable level of detail about the concerts and what they did. Matters get a bit self-congratulatory, but we still get a nice general examination of the topics.
Fans will want to see the three Previously Unseen Performances. This area includes “If Not For You” (two minute, 53 seconds), “Come On In My Kitchen” (2:45) and “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” (4:13). The first pairs Harrison and Dylan in an acoustic rendition shot during rehearsals, while “Kitchen” offers a Leon Russell tune filmed in the same circumstances. Finally, Dylan’s “Love/Limit” comes from the matinee concert. All three offer varying degrees of sloppiness, but they’re a lot of fun to watch and hear.
Next we encounter a few featurettes. The Making of the Film runs seven minutes, 55 seconds and includes comments from Aspinall, Keltner, Wenner, musicians Jim Horn and Chuck Findley, mix down engineers Norm Kinney and Steve Mitchell, and director Saul Swimmer. They discuss the difficulties of shooting the film as well as mixing the audio. We also get some anecdotes about Phil Spector and a hidden message at the end of the album. A smattering of decent notes pop up here, but I don’t think we learn a whole lot.
The Making of the Album lasts four minutes, 25 seconds and presents remarks from Harrison and former Capitol Records head Bhaskar Menon. The show discusses the legal complications related to the record and the machinations related to that subject. We also see footage of Ringo at the Grammys as he picks up an award for the album. The featurette’s title seems misleading; it addresses the release of the album but doesn’t get into its creation. Still, it provides a decent look at those issues.
Titled, The Original Artwork, the next featurette fills four minutes, nine seconds. We hear from Taplin, Menon, art director Tom Wilkes, and stills photographer Barry Feinstein. The show gets into the choice of cover photo and the images in the album’s booklet. Some interesting notes pop up here, especially when Wilkes gets into problems shooting Bob Dylan. It’s a short but useful program.
Finally, Recollections of August 1st 1971 offers a three-minute and 39-second look back at the event. We find comments from Starr, Keltner, Menon, Preston, Taplin, Wenner, Puttnam, Russell, Horn, Aspinall, Shankar and musician Klaus Voormann. The only truly interesting story examines Dylan’s appearance and Russell’s turn on bass. Otherwise, this is mostly a discussion of what a great day it was. That makes this a bland featurette.
A Photo Gallery provides a running program. In this three-minute and 33-second piece, we see shots from the concert accompanied by a performance of “Beware of Darkness”. Finally, Take a Bow goes for 104 seconds and simply acts as a curtain call for the musicians; we see them along with their names.
1971’s The Concert for Bangladesh was the original star-studded charity concert. With a roster that includes legends like George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton, it remains one of the best. The movie suffers from a few problems, but it covers the event in a generally competent manner. The DVD presents better than expected visuals along with excellent audio. We don’t find a ton of strong extras, but many of the ones we get have some merit, especially when we check out the exclusive performances. It’s about time we got a good home video release of Bangladesh. I strongly recommend this DVD.
http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/dvd/220904.php

Deluxe limited edition of the "Concert For Bangladesh" DVD:
Contents include 64 page booklet; original film poster; 10 postcards; Apple logo clingzee; handwritten lyrics to the song 'Bangla Desh'; George Harrison UNICEF fund insert.

George Harrison: His widow talks about realising his final vision

Before his untimely death in 2001, George Harrison wanted to share his revolutionary 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with the Live Aid generation. Now his widow Olivia has done just that. She talks to Louise Jury
Published: 19 October 2005

When George Harrison died of cancer four years ago at the age of 58, his widow, Olivia, vowed to finish the projects he had been working on.

So far she has continued the restoration and maintenance of the large Victorian garden at their mansion near Henley-on-Thames, remastered and released six albums from his back catalogue and finished Brainwashed, the album he was working on in his final months. And today, in Los Angeles, she will be joined by her husband's friends - led by fellow Beatle Ringo Starr and a clutch of other Sixties rock musicians - to launch a DVD, with accompanying documentary, of the concert that Harrison organised in 1971 to raise funds for refugees in Bangladesh.

The original Concert for Bangladesh and associated merchandising raised $15m, which was distributed through Unicef, the United Nations' Children's Fund, and all the royalties for the new release will go to the same cause. It is this cause that has enticed the reluctant Mrs Harrison into the limelight. She looks slightly uncomfortable at being the focus of attention, though she tries hard to be gracious.

In an elegant cardigan-jacket and fitted black trousers, Olivia, petite and raven-haired, nurses a coffee and betrays her Mexican-American roots with a gentle accent as she requests her own tape recorder to record our interview. We talk in the living room above her office at the headquarters of Apple Records, the Beatles' label, in a Belgravia townhouse that would make an estate agent swoon.

Images of John, Paul, Ringo and George line the walls and it remains the hub of the Fab Four's vast business empire, which backed Harrison's venture in 1971 and is supporting the release of the DVD now - albeit for no profit. I wonder whether it is distressing to be confronted with so many reminders of her late husband, but Olivia retains her detachment. "I always separated George the artist from George the person." Even when he was alive, she says, they would walk past pictures of him as if it were somebody else entirely.

Indeed, she resists discussing her emotional life and is on guard against betraying the privacy she and Harrison guarded so closely. It is Unicef she wants to talk about. The fund co-operated with the release, and the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke warmly in the accompanying documentary about the impact the original concert had. "This re-issue is a very big deal for Unicef; they're really happy about it," says Olivia. "We're just handing them the whole project and hopefully it will generate more funds for them. It's an historical document and it's theirs."

The concert came about after Harrison's friend Ravi Shankar confided his fears for his native Bengal, where thousands of refugees created by its fight for independence were stricken by severe floods. But it was a nerve-racking venture, with Harrison unsure until the very last minute whether friends such as Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan would turn up to Madison Square Garden for the two performances, in the afternoon and evening of 1 August. Although it ultimately proved to be the model for Live Aid and the huge charity concerts of the Eighties and Nineties, the event, according to Olivia, represented risky and uncharted waters at the time.

"The music community had never made that sort of endeavour before. But it was innocent and simple and straightforward and beautiful, I think, because it was an expression of concern through their music. It was the only way George knew how to help." The idea of the DVD was originally floated before what would have been the 30th anniversary of the concert in 2001, and Harrison seized on it with typical enthusiasm. The original footage was retrieved from storage at Apple. But with Harrison undergoing treatment for the throat cancer with which he was diagnosed in 1997, he had remastered only the music by the time of his death.

He never saw forgotten footage of, for instance, himself performing "If Not For You" with Dylan in rehearsals, and a Dylan performance of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" not included in the original film (which was released briefly on VHS). It was left to his softly spoken widow to put all the film together and complete the work.

"I couldn't devise a more perfect project for myself. It's so close to George and he had his hand on it. I couldn't just put it back on the shelf," Olivia says. Dhani, her son with Harrison and also a musician, helped complete Brainwashed, but he has been less involved with the DVD. "It's a bit more my era - 1971," she says, smiling.

As Olivia reminisces about Harrison and how carefully he looked after his fellow musicians, how touched he was that men like Clapton and Dylan had agreed to take part because they could see it mattered to him, it is almost possible to forget that she was not there at the time.

Although the film project has brought her as close to the event as many who were actually present, she only experienced the concert second-hand. She and Harrison met three years afterwards, when they were introduced at his American record label where Olivia, then 27, was working. But in 1971, she had been travelling in Europe. "I remember being annoyed that I didn't know about the concert and thinking, 'How can I have missed that?'" Yet she recalls the effect it had on public awareness of the disaster in Asia. "I don't think any of us knew about it before, I'm ashamed to say. We didn't have the media like we have today."