Faces: Faces at the BBC Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.5

Faces: Faces at the BBC Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 26, 2024

It's never easy to collaborate, and when a collaboration includes folks with their own separate reputations, it probably only becomes even more difficult. While not exactly in the same category as issues revolving around this particular band, among the funnier little trivia items I've collected in my love of film history is a "cease and desist" letter that Golden Age actor Edward Arnold's representatives sent to none other than Samuel Goldwyn, when Goldwyn's ads for Come and Get It had the audacity to offer Frances Farmer's name in the same size font as Arnold's, which Arnold found objectionable (admittedly probably for contractual reasons, where every jot and tittle of billing is typically overtly ironed out). Faces may not have made any films, but there seems to have been "billing" issues with the band almost from the get go, no doubt due to its somewhat rocky genesis (no English band name pun intended) after the kind of faltering demise of Small Faces in favor of Humble Pie, and then the "creation" (really, more of an "evolution") of some of the members of Small Faces into just plain Faces. Interestingly in that regard, and certainly saliently in terms of some apparently bruised egos that emerged from this situation, Faces' first album was released in North America under the band name Small Faces. Rhino has now aggregated another kind of stunning collection of rarities from Faces' heyday, including eight CDs and a Blu-ray disc, all packaged extravagantly in an oversized hardback book that should certainly delight fans of either the band or any of its (sorry, another pun forthcoming) notable members.

This is another positively overwhelming release from Rhino, with those aforementioned eight CDs and one Blu-ray disc. I'll have more to say about things below in the subsequent sections, but here for easy perusing are the complete contents of all nine discs.

CD One:

• John Peel’s Sunday Concert
  Recorded June 25, 1970; broadcast July 5, 1970

  1. You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It) (6:30)
  2. Wicked Messenger (4:35)
  3. Devotion (6:54)
  4. It’s All Over Now (7:59)
  5. I Feel So Good (8:27)

• John Peel’s Sunday Concert
  Recorded November 19, 1970; broadcast November 29, 1970

  6. Country Comfort (5:11)
  7. You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It) (7:01)
  8. Too Much Woman (For A Henpecked Man)/Street Fighting Man (5:56)
  9. Maybe I’m Amazed (6:49)
  10. Around The Plynth/Country Honk/Gasoline Alley (10:20)

CD Two:

• John Peel’s Sunday Concert
  Recorded May 13, 1971; broadcast May 23, 1971

  1. You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It) (8:56)
  2. Cut Across Shorty (6:29)
  3. Love In Vain (8:31)
  4. Bad ’N’ Ruin (5:27)
  5. It’s All Over Now (5:56)
  6. Had Me A Real Good Time (7:05)
  7. (I Know) I’m Losing You (6:43)
  8. I Feel So Good (11:01)

CD Three:

• Sounds For Saturday
  Recorded October 26, 1971; broadcast April 1, 1972

  1. Three Button Hand Me Down (4:47)
  2. Maybe I’m Amazed (6:11)
  3. Too Much Woman (For A Henpecked Man)/Street Fighting Man (6:41)
  4. Miss Judy’s Farm (4:14)
  5. Love In Vain (8:13)
  6. Stay With Me (5:56)
  7. (I Know) I’m Losing You (7:44)

CD Four:

• John Peel’s Sunday Concert
  Recorded February 17, 1972; broadcast February 26, 1972

  1. Intro/You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It) (0:16)
  2. Three Button Hand Me Down (4:44)
  3. Miss Judy’s Farm (4:04)
  4. Memphis, Tennessee (5:21)
  5. Give Me The Moonlight (0:34)
  6. Too Bad (5:35)
  7. Last Orders Please (3:07)
  8. Devotion (6:30)
  9. That’s All You Need/Country Honk/Gasoline Alley (11:16)
  10. (I Know) I’m Losing You (7:44)
  11. Stay With Me (5:59)
  12. Had Me A Real Good Time (2:35)
  13. Underneath The Arches (0:21)
  14. Every Picture Tells A Story (1:54)

CD Five:

• In Concert
  Recorded February 8, 1973; not originally broadcast

  1. Silicone Grown (2:56)
  2. Cindy Incidentally (2:51)
  3. Angel (4:37)
  4. Memphis, Tennessee (4:12)
  5. True Blue (4:28)
  6. I’d Rather Go Blind (5:18)
  7. You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It) (5:28)
  8. Twistin’ The Night Away (4:35)
  9. It’s All Over Now (3:49)
  10. Miss Judy’s Farm (4:08)
  11. Maybe I’m Amazed (6:01)
  12. Three Button Hand Me Down (4:45)
  13. (I Know) I’m Losing You (6:27)

CD Six:

• In Concert
  Recorded March 29, 1973; broadcast April 21, 1973

  1. Silicone Grown (3:43)
  2. Cindy Incidentally (2:39)
  3. Memphis, Tennessee (4:45)
  4. If I’m On The Late Side (2:58)
  5. My Fault (3:43)
  6. The Stealer (3:19)
  7. Borstal Boys (3:29)
  8. Angel (4:16)
  9. Stay With Me (5:19)
  10. True Blue (5:22)
  11. Twistin’ The Night Away (9:27)
  12. Miss Judy’s Farm (4:13)
  13. Jealous Guy (6:27)
  14. Too Bad (3:43)

CD Seven:

• Top Gear
  Recorded March 9, 1970; broadcast March 28, 1970

  1. Wicked Messenger (4:06)
  2. Devotion (4:50)
  3. Shake, Shudder, Shiver (2:43)
  4. Pineapple And The Monkey (4:21)

• Top Gear
  Recorded March 10, 1970; broadcast March 15, 1970

  5. Three Button Hand Me Down (3:54)
  6. Flying (3:55)
  7. Wicked Messenger (2:54)

• Top Gear
  Recorded September 15, 1970; broadcast September 19, 1970

  8. Had Me A Real Good Time (4:48)
  9. Around The Plynth/Gasoline Alley (7:32)
  10. Country Comfort (6:01)

• Top Gear: John Peel’s Christmas Carol Concert
  Recorded December 8, 1970; broadcast December 1970

  11. Away In A Manger – Rod Stewart (1:15)
  12. God Rest Ye Merry GEntlemen/Good King Wenceslas/Silent Night/O Come All Ye Faithful – Faces & Choir (4:00)

CD Eight:

• Top Gear: John Peel’s Christmas Carol Concert
  Recorded April 20, 1971; broadcast May 3, 1971

  1. Had Me A Real Good Time (5:03)
  2. Love In Vain (7:02)
  3. Oh Lord I’m Browned Off (4:31)
  4. Maybe I’m Amazed (5:13)

• Top Gear: John Peel’s Christmas Carol Concert
  Recorded September 28, 1971; broadcast October 6, 1971

  5. Stay With Me (5:16)
  6. Miss Judy’s Farm (3:29)
  7. Maggie May (5:28)

Blu-ray:

• Sounds For Saturday
  Recorded October 26, 1971; broadcast April 1, 1972

  1. Three Button Hand Me Down (4:47)
  2. Maybe I’m Amazed (6:11)
  3. Too Much Woman (For A Henpecked Man)/Street Fighting Man (6:41)
  4. Miss Judy’s Farm (4:14)
  5. Love In Vain (8:13)
  6. Stay With Me (5:56)
  7. (I Know) I’m Losing You (7:44)

Faces: Faces at the BBC Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Faces at the BBC: Complete BBC Concert & Session Recordings features a Blu-ray presentation of one concert courtesy of Rhino with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.32:1. While this shows telltale signs of being an upscale, perhaps somewhat hilariously due to the hallucinogenic video presentation, which seems to subliminally suggest "just in case you didn't drop your morning LSD today", there are so many interstitial tweaks of the imagery that the upscale may not be that problematic. That said, this shows most of the bugaboos that frequently accompany such presentations, including a kind of smeary overall appearance, and anomalies like combing artifacts on things like rapidly moving drumsticks. The palette is generally secure, though the limitations of the source element can lead to ebbs and flows as lighting regimens change, and especially when those psychedelic effects come into play.

Faces: Faces at the BBC Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While this is a "television performance" soundtrack, the Blu-ray disc's LPCM 2.0 Mono track is really rather lively overall. You can easily hear a bit of background hiss before the theme music for the series kicks in, but that tends to retreat once the band starts their performance (you can occasionally hear it in moments like the quiet section of Maybe I'm Amazed). There probably isn't going to be quite enough low end for some listeners, but general fidelity is surprisingly strong, and the midrange and vocals are especially nicely rendered.

Faces: Faces at the BBC Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As I tend to mention in these immense music related releases where there can be one or more Blu-ray discs, one fan's "supplements" may be another fan's "main feature", so I'll simply let those very fans look over the contents of the discs above to ferret out how they feel about the disc contents. This is another pretty stunningly packaged release from Rhino that comes in a kind of oversized quasi-DigiBook that measures approximately 12 inches square by around 3/4" deep. The first four CDs are housed in slots inside the front cover, and similarly the last four CDs are housed in slots inside the back cover. There's a central thick cardboard "page" that encloses a fantastic booklet (measuring almost 12" x 12" itself), chock full of great writing, a ton of fantastic pictures, and track lists and credits. This central cardboard page's backside has a glued on envelope that encloses the Blu-ray disc, and if I have one small quibble with the packaging, it was in terms of how hard it was to extract the Blu-ray disc from this envelope (trying not to rip it off the cardboard page in the process). I ended up turning the entire DigiBook upside down while it was open and kind of tapping it on the floor to slightly dislodge the Blu-ray disc.

Faces: Faces at the BBC Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While the Blu-ray disc in this package may understandably be of most interest to readers of this site, it might nonetheless be everything else in this incredible package that will merit the most attention. The performance on the Blu-ray is viscerally energetic and a great document of the band, even if the video quality is less than stellar. The CDs are a treasure trove of performances, and both the packaging and booklet are superb. Highly recommended.