Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival

If you're hesitating about seeing this, then stop, decide you're going to, and seek out this movie record of the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. The roll call of acts is breathtaking: top of the tree we have The Who, The Doors, and Hendrix, then we have Jethro Tull, Leonard Cohen, Ten Years After, Free, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Taste, Joni Mitchell, Donovan, and, er, Tiny Tim.

Otherwise we see something of the atmosphere of the festival away from the main stages, focusing on the attendees and the organisers, and this is also interesting. But it is the music which draws you, with fantastic sound recording and up close filming of these wonderful acts. So many of these people have passed on during the 1970s, 80s, 90s: so good to have a permanent record on film of their work. Is it a better film than 'Woodstock'? It's a close call.

This film was released only a few years ago, constructed from footage almost three decades old. One wonders why it had never seen the light of day before. "Message to Love" is an instant classic, a rock documentary that deserves to sit up on the same mantle as "Woodstock", "Monterrey Pop" and "Gimme Shelter". The Isle of Wight Festival in August of 1970 was the last of its kind, an event that was supposed to be an English Woodstock but descended into utter chaos as the Aquarian hippie ideal knocked heads with the emerging juggernaut of a corporate music industry ready to mass-market a "product" to the growing legions of rock fans. But despite the hypocrisy, mismanagement and unruly behavior that director Murray Lerner ("When We Were Kings") so keenly observes, he does not lose sight of the fact that a lot of great music went down during those five days. With an amazingly eclectic lineup that has Miles Davis and Tiny Tim as its polar extremes, Lerner and his crew captured many memorable performances from both the icons of the 60s and the rising stars of the 70s. If your memory of rock festival flicks is limited to the good vibes of Monterrey or Woodstock, you'll likely be taken aback by the unrestrained belligerence that permeated the air at Wight. Rikki, the so-called "Master of Ceremonies" is the lightning rod here, as he both patronizes and berates the hordes who have descended on the festival site. It turns out that some 600,000 fans have reached the island by ferry but only a fraction of those have any intention of buying a ticket. A tent city called "Desolation Row" sprouts up on a nearby hillside and is populated by folks who are determined to get a closer view at no charge. This tension is reflected in the selection of onstage peformances, like the Who (very much in their prime) ripping through an incediary "Young Man Blues" and the Doors' sinister versions of "When the Music's Over" and "The End". The Isle of Wight has long been notable for being the last performances of both Jim Morrison (he would be gone within a year) and Jimi Hendrix, who died less than three weeks later. Hendrix's appearance here only adds to his already large legacy--his music sounds as revolutionary as ever as he wails away on three songs with the Band of Gypsies, including an otherworldly "Voodoo Chile". "Message to Love" also opens a window onto the growing compartmentilization of rock, with three genres taking root at the start of the 70s. Hard rock (Ten Years After, Free, Rory Gallagher), singer-songwriters (Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristofferson) and progressive rock (the Moody Blues, Jethro Tull and the audacious debut of Emerson, Lake and Palmer)are all competing for their slice of an increasingly large pie. With Rikki and the other promoters dubiously claiming that no other bands will take the stage without being paid in full with cash (in hopes of getting potential gatecrashers to pay up) the musicians are caught in an uneasy position. Trying to show they are "of the people" while knowing full well they are not going through life playing for free, it makes for some of the most interesting stage patter on record. Lerner lets the fans have their say as well, including one who notes that the bands are becoming "plastic gods" while another vividly describes the festival as a "feudal court scene"--with the stars as royalty, the groupies as the courtiers and the audience as the serfs. He may have gone one step farther and noted the moat-like double fencing with a dog-patrolled no-man's-land in between (actually closer in design to the former Berlin Wall) that serves to hopefully keep out the Desolation Row "barbarians". But as one of the promoter's people notes, in the end it doesn't matter if the music's good. This is true enough as the film closes with the Doors, Hendrix and the Who being edited in for one more song each. An uneasy truce is reached but when Rikki flashes a double peace sign at the crowd he only succeeds in looking like Richard Nixon. An era has passed before our eyes as the rose-colored glow of the 60s counterculture is smudged by the inevitable rise of the mass-consumer pop marketplace.

I never get to experience the Isle of Wight or the Woodstock so this is a great way to see it and there's also interviews. You can also see the fans raging against the police. It's a great video... you should see it and experience it for yourself. There are great artist like Hendrix,The Doors, The Who, Joni Mitchell and lot more.

For fans of the musical acts that performed at this one of a kind concert, Isle of Wight is a must-see look. The interview sections are not of the high quality of those of Woodstock where you might have taken away something from what was being said. Here it's mostly a lot of ultra-hippie types (one who apparently gave his 3 year old son acid and pot), as well as some British fellows who run the concert. These interviews are OK enough on their own, and maybe the biggest liability from Lerner on this end as well as the music is in the editing. It's only a 2 hour film, which regrettably (like Monterrey Pop) is way too short in viewing such a monumental moment (and fleeting one like Altamont) in such a short running time. Still, almost every musical act is worth checking out in their limited time frame, and a little extra sadness comes along in seeing that a few of these people didn't live long after the concert ended. Some of the memorable acts include the Doors (all too brief of course), Jimi Hendrix (ditto), the Who, Miles Davis (in different form from his 50's days), Ten Years After, the Moody Blues, and Free.

More so than the Altamont debacle, the Isle of Wight Festival was the end of an era. Morrison and Hendrix would soon be gone, and the impracticalities of mass concerts like this is shown in all the turmoil that occurred here. This is a documentary movie with terrific musical numbers in a wild mix, from Leonard Cohen to Ten Years After, from John Sebastian to the Who, from Tiny Tim to Miles Davis to Taste. The most revealing glimpse into the future is the progressive rock juggernaut taking sail, with Emerson Lake and Palmer a million miles away from Joni Mitchell-type hippiedom. The invasion of the stage by a man during Joni's set serves to contrast the "do your own thing" attitude with the "let's tighten up security and make some money" realities which would become the norm soon enough. There's a middle ground here which is energizing. Certainly this is no Woodstock '99, which was simply a horrible evil place with no redeeming qualities.