Iona - Iona

Reviewed by Tony Cummings

Cross Rhythms was very much involved with Iona from its earliest days - I remember David Fitzgerald playing me early demos while I visited the band in the studio when they were recording their groundbreaking 'Iona' album of 1990. But nothing quite prepared me for this truly breathtaking DVD. Even if you're a hardcore devotee of the band's unique Celtic/rock/jazz fusion and have 'Iona' on CD (now of course available in remixed and remastered form through ICC) you must get to see this breathtaking DVD which though filmed in 1990 (for, I believe, Dutch TV) has never been generally available until now. Many music-orientated vids/DVDs fall into two camps - the band playing live on stage or a documentary approach. But although there are elements of both in this, there is also some of the most stunning footage of the Scottish Isle of Iona you can ever imagine. One shot looking down on a wild goose as it languidly flies over the green land far below must have needed a helicopter to shoot and presumably was spliced in from some natural history archive. All I know is that integrated into the other worldly beauty of Joanne Hogg's vocal on "Flight Of The Wild Goose", the effect is one of the most heart-stopping marriages of music and visual imagery ever achieved by Christian film makers. If you thought the iWorship series of visuals to worship music were good, you'll be utterly blown away by the "Flight Of The Wild Goose" sequence. There's much else here - some fragments of a practise rehearsal as the band explore new ideas prior to recording 'The Book Of Kells', Nick Beggs live on stage making some hilarious facial grimaces as he hunches over his Chapman stick, and some great interview fragments including a closer where Dave Bainbridge gives testimony to how he became a Christian. All beautifully edited and executed. This classic does more in its half hour playing time than most DVDs twice its length.