Adumbration

Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival (1997 - Murray Lerner, Director)

It's 1970, the Isle of Wight festival, and everyone is there:  Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Joni Mitchell, Jethro Tull, The Who, Tiny Tim, and 600,000 fans.  The performances are well documented;  good sound, and not too much movement with the camera work.  Interspersed with the music are interviews with the promoters, organizers, master of ceremonies, and fans.

Hendrix, especially, was interesting to see and hear;  he had more attention than most with four compositions.  They say he died twelve days after this gig, which, by the way, sounded great.

This festival was also announced as the debut performance for Emerson, Lake, and Palmer;  too little of thier music ended up in the film (in my considered opinion) - just the finale of Pictures at an Exhibition which ended with cannons fired off, followed by a jam off of some Nice riff, with KE rocking and pounding on the organ.  If the rumored H.E.L.P. band was ever more than that, 12 days doesn't sound like a lot of time between the formation of one and the ending of the other.

Of the 600,000 said to have been there, only 50,000 paid to get in; aerial shots showed the masses everywhere.  At several points in the film we see the people outside the walls, camping out, trying to get in, and finally breaking the walls down, moving past the guard dogs, and getting in.  The promoter interviews showed thier increasing frustration, and the MC announcements to the crowd did not hide it either.  The promoters lost everything, and scenes of the site after everyone left showed trash everywhere - not a pretty sight.

Kris Kristofferson walked offstage in mid-song - I thought he felt threatened, but he may have only been bored;  it reminded me some of the concert at Altamont documented in Gimme Shelter.   Moody Blues, Joan Baez, and lots of other musicians less well known to me also played.