Bee Gees: One Night Only (Anniversary Edition) by Eagle Rock Entertainment

Actors

• Bee Gees

Format

• Color
• Dolby
• DTS Surround Sound
• NTSC

Editorial Review

Taped as a lavish cable television special in 1997, One Night Only trades on the Bee Gees' shape-shifting career as pop survivors. Over the course of 111 minutes, this straightforward concert, produced at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and groomed for both video and CD posterity, sprints through 31 songs from their past three decades. Even after the inevitable disco jokes are expended, and the jaundiced viewer contemplates the role hats, hairspray, and comb-overs now play in dressing the once stylishly long-haired troika, the Gibb brothers' signature vocal harmonies and hook-laden song craft beg respect.

Casual listeners can't be blamed for equating the Bee Gees with the dance floor bonanza they reaped through 1978's Saturday Night Fever, yet that commercial zenith was actually the culmination of a comeback for a group that had seemed washed up by the early '70s. One Night Only thankfully takes an even-handed view of both their original late '60s hits (“Massachusetts,” “To Love Somebody,” “Lonely Days”), building from a cannily Beatle-browed vocal sound, and the '70s blue-eyed soul (“Jive Talkin',” “Nights on Broadway”) that led them naturally into disco. The Fever hits are here, as are Gibb originals that clicked for other acts; the family circle also widens for a posthumous duet with their late brother, Andy Gibb, while Celine Dion gets star billing in the collaborative “Immortality.” –Sam Sutherland