I have a DVD of BJH's 1980 Berlin concert that I bought for cheap somewhere, but I'd never actually watched it because I once bought a 1980s BJH single that sucked (Cheap the Bullet). But I just took a closer look and saw it also had on it something called Time Honoured Tales - a set of five crude music videos made to promote Time Honoured Ghosts in 1975. I just watched them, and it beautiful, fun vintage prog. Unfortunately I don't see any of it on YouTube or I'd post some. It's really studio "live" performances (mimed or just covered over with some other audio source I'm pretty sure) intercut with bits of interesting video. Sometimes odd, but always very 1970s so a lot of fun to see. I was watching with my five-year-old son, and when they first showed the 1975 Les Holroyd he laughed and said "He looks like a girl." I said "Well, a lot of boys had long hair then, so that makes him look a little like a girl," and he said "And everything else." He meant his eyes, and he did look very emotional and a bit weepy.
The band is very inert - I don't think they knew what a music video was yet. They actually look pretty stoned, but of course in the Berlin concert they're pretty inert too, so I guess that's just how they were. It ain't dance music.
Anyway, I recommend finding a copy of this 2010 DVD (it has 5.1 sound, BTW. Even the 1980 stuff has aged well, and has nice dated "patina" to it, which I enjoy. Of course, that's over thirty years ago now...
On a somewhat different note, when I was first reading about BJH before ever hearing them (I think in the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Prog) they were described as having become sort of a Christian prog band at some point. I wonder if this is really correct. Yes, Hymn has some "religious" lyrics, but I think the lyrics just happen to deal with Christian religiosity. Overall, none of their albums seem Christian to me. I'm thinking it was just one aspect of the band, or of one of the members.
Finally, does anyone know why there was the split between John Lees and Les Holroyd? I think I read some explanation in liner notes for one of the CDs, but I forget and it wasn't gone into in any detail. Maybe Vicki from Esoteric can shed some light?
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