SoundBoard

In 1975, the Bee Gees released their 13th album (11th worldwide), Main Course, and by 1977, Saturday Night Fever was ruling the world. Here on Soundstage, the brothers Gibb were so affable and chatty even. Just bear in mind that soundboard Bee Gees live (albeit from a TV broadcast) are hard to come by.

In 1975, in the midst of their second major period of stardom - but before Saturday Night Fever would drive them to their greatest popularity - the Bee Gees appeared on the Chicago-based series Soundstage, performing a large selection of their repertoire from the late ’60s through the mid-’70s, up through “Jive Talkin’.” The result is sort of the video equivalent of Here At Last, their mid-’70s live double album. The anonymous bootleggers who have put this out used a video master that was a generation or two off from what it ideally would be, resulting in a slightly fuzzy image at times, but the sound is impeccable, and in recognition of this, they’ve made it a combined DVD-R/CD-R package, with a CD-R of the audio portion of the show accompanying the bootleg DVD. It’s all essential viewing for serious fans of the Bee Gees, capturing them in superb voice throughout and doing more than all right on their instruments as well. Yvonne Elliman is the featured guest, but she never really has a chance to shine amidst the voices of the three Gibb brothers. All of this is so enjoyable, however, that the legalities should be worked out and it should be retrieved legitimately and reissued by authorized parties.