Cert:

Cat.no: GVD 012

Running time: 53 minutes

Year: 1969

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)

Chapters: 8

Sound: Mono

Languages: English

Subtitles: None

Fullscreen: 4:3

16:9-enhanced: No

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 5

Price: £19.99

Extras: None

Producer/Directors :

Jo Durden-Smith and Leslie Woodhead

The Stones in the Park is a Granada TV programme about a concert recorded in Hyde Park, London, on July 5th 1969, some two days after the death of guitarist Brian Jones.

There's no doubting the quality of the Stones' material over the years but the problem I have with almost all home video/DVD releases of concerts is that you never get to see the complete work. What we have here is a selection of live songs, occasionally interspersed with comments and chat from the band - and annoyingly slap-bang in the middle of a track at times - which was made for an hour-long TV show once adverts had been slotted in.

There are just eight songs with some classic tunes such as Sympathy for the Devil, Honky Tonk Woman and I'm Free, which was later covered by the Soup Dragons in July 1990 making No.5, but any fans that are considering buying this will already have the albums and at least one 'Best Of' compilation, so it's one for the die-hard collectors who must have everything ever to do with the band. However, even they might have a bit of trouble wanting to stump up an entire twenty notes for this presentation. The content score only gets 2/5 since, while I do like their music, there's just not nearly enough of it.

For the Stones tracks included here that were actually released as singles, since there's too many releases to mention otherwise, their chart positions are as follows :

Aug 65 No. 1 (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction May 68 No. 1 Jumping Jack Flash Jul 69 No. 1 Honky Tonk Woman

Presented in 4:3 fullscreen, the age of the print shows for sure, despite the "digitally-remastered" claim on the cover. Print flecks and drop-outs are obvious all the way through and with all the music in mono, the songs have all seen better days on remastered CDs. The average bitrate is a steady 5.56Mb/s.

There are just 8 chapters on this DVD, with one for each song :

1. Midnight Rambler 2. Satisfaction 3. I'm Free 4. I'm Yours, She's Mine

5. Jumping Jack Flash 6. Honky Tonk Woman 7. Love in Vain 8. Sympathy for the Devil

There are no lyrics to follow onscreen and no extras whatsoever which is a shame. The menus are silent but do contain some subtle animation.

Sorry Granada, but for what has been made available here it's the sort of thing I'd expect as an extra on a music video compilation DVD as opposed to a stand-alone release.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS	0
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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.