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Message To Love: The Isle Of Wight Festival: Review

MESSAGE TO LOVE: THE ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL
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GIMME SHELTER, the chronicle of the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont, captured the diseased end of the WOODSTOCK myth. Murray Lerner's documentary of the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival bears equally eloquent witness to another moment in the death of the Love Generation's dreams. The five-day concert was meant to be the UK's answer to Woodstock, but its somewhat naive organizers failed to realize that large-scale rock concerts had become big business. More than 600,000 hippies and freaks showed up; but only 60,000 bothered to buy tickets, and disgruntled non-ticketholders set up camp outside the festival's makeshift barricades, threatening to "free the festival." Meanwhile, onstage, one can actually see the gulf between artist and audience widening. Kris Kristofferson storms off in a snit; Joni Mitchell, in tears, accuses an ungrateful audience of behaving like tourists; Joan Baez discusses her no pay, no play policy. The event was a financial disaster, and Lerner's sharp, devastingly funny film, which was to be financed by the profits, remained one of its greatest casualties -- until now. Lerner managed to capture all the hilarious backstage wheeling and dealing, as well as some of the era's best live music. Standouts include a surprisingly good turn by the Doors, and one of Jimi Hendrix's last performances, 12 days before his lethal overdose. leave a comment
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