Message to Love

There's a lot to love about Message to Love: Isle of Wight Festival, and a lot to hate. First, the performances: The 1970 Isle of Wight festival was 3 days and I don't know how many bands: Hendrix, the Who, the Doors, Donovan, Kristofferson, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Rory Gallagher, Free, Tull, ELP, the Moody Blues, Tiny Tim - off the top of my head. And since the movie is at least 2 hours long, each band gets ... a lot less time than you'd think, about 3/4ths of a song each, on average. So, love the lineup, love the songs, hate to see them cut short.

Then, there's the documentary side: 600,000 people came to see the concert. 60,000 bought tickets. It was war between the promoters and the scruffies on Desolation Row, the tent city outside the fence. It was a war of idealists, of earnest proclamations of love, non-violence and honesty, shown immediately to be hollow lies or evasions. It wasn't easy to like anyone, even the musicians - who mostly wanted to get paid, play and get out, in that order.

Joni Mitchell's set was interrupted by a hippie asking to make an announcement. While security is hustling him off-stage, she says a few words - like Grace Slick's "Brothers and sisters" rap at Altamont. Unfortunately, she uses her recent experience at a Hopi healing dance as her metaphor. Great voice, though, fantastic cheekbones.

The hippie explains himself coherently, and when that doesn't work, makes up a plausible story. When that doesn't work, he makes up an implausible one, and when that doesn't work, skips off with the guards.

So many 60's concert films are about the tension between the kids who want the music free and the guys who want to get paid. Message to Love handles this better than most. But I wish it had more music.

SPOILER: The kids break down the fence. The promoters surrender, lose all their money and go bankrupt. It starts to rain. The movie doesn't come out for 25 years because the promoters are broke.