Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival (1996) Reviews

• Great rockumentary

  GeorgeC1999-01-10

  This film chronicles the 1970 Isle of Wight Rock Festival from behind and on front of the scenes. Incredible concert footage of Hendrix and Jim Morrison (both of whom died just after the festival) as well as numerous other pop, folk, and rock artists make this film wonderful just as a concert video. Even more revealing, though, is footage of the festival's production and management, including riots, rebellious patrons, break-ins, and mordant commentary on why rock festivals don't happen anymore. Beautifully paced and edited.

• Brilliant document of a turning point in rock history.

  Rick O2001-01-03

  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.

• testimonial

  polano-12007-11-24

  i was there, 20 years old, with 2 other Italian friends (on a blue 500 fiat car), sleeping in 2 Canadian tents: Italians were a lot, anyway, and we met a few of them in Amsterdam - desolation row was full of french people, and many people were just taking' hard drugs, not even trying' to move from their sleeping' bags- i've recognized myself, thanks to you-tube excerpt, in the movie (that i'm gonna by via amazon tonight), and after 37 yrs i remember the camera that was shooting' me (sayin' then to my friends: i'm sure they will cut me out) - i remember also running' all the time to find a place, and a feeling' of tiredness, because of our long traveling' from Italy, via Yugoslavia, and then Holland, and then england (taking' with us coffee, pasta and Italian food, you know ;-) - real problem was the WC (don't talk about) - i bought in advance the tickets by mail, but we're the few, and the day people broke the fence was scary, really - the atmosphere, to be true, was more like a busy busy mess as a bee kingdom, and the weather not bad - the final night was like apocalypse now, in a way: i got fever and stomach illness :-( while Hendrix playing i went back late, tons of soda cans like Egyptian pyramids, fires everywhere, and fish&chips stands selling' for nearly nothing' all that remained - so we're finally eating' like wolves - OK, folks, that's all, for the moment - i have few b/w pix too (anyone interested?) Sp, proud-i-was-there PS any site of people who were there?

• I, too, was there!

  jwhyle12014-01-17

  I remember the ferry ride over, carrying bags of drugs. Not mine, but carrying for a friend. It might have been speed, but since I only smoked pot I had no interest in it-no brains either, apparently! We went for the whole 5 days because I could and didn't know any better. The organizers handed out paper sleeping bags to a waiting throng on the day we arrived. We slept out-side the gates - 20 ft. away - and ran for a decent position when the gates opened the next morning. I don't remember eating or defecating, or very much of the music, but I have photos so I know I was there! I do remember people throwing glass pop bottles over the heads of those in front for some unknown reason, and even in my altered star realized they were idiots. John Sebastien - Lovin' Spoonful - entertained the crowd acoustically for two hours because of some band not showing or technical reasons, I forget which, of course. We walked up the Afton Downs hill and looked out over the English Channel. We saw people hundreds of feet below playing in the cold!! water. With a film crew shooting them. It looked forced. We also saw people fall from the top and bounce, slide and fall down the chalk cliffs. I've no idea what happened to them. At the end, on Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people started the trek to the ferries. There may have been buses to Cowes, but we heard it was faster to walk the 4.5 mi. To Yarmouth and that's what we did. I hope I'm in the movie, I was so much older then. I'm younger than that, now :-)

• Turning point of hippiedom

  secordman2001-05-26

  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.