Message to Love - The Isle of Wight Festival
Message to Love - The Isle of Wight Festival
| 21 February 1997 (USA)
Message to Love - The Isle of Wight Festival Trailers

In August 1970, 600,000 fans flocked to the Isle of Wight to witness the third and final festival to be held on the island. Besides the music, they also got a look at the greed, cynicism and corruption that would plague the music industry for years to come. They also witnessed the final, drugged out performance of Jimi Hendrix in England just two weeks before he would meet a tragic death. When it all was over, the fans view of rock and roll was never the same.

Reviews
Supelice

Dreadfully Boring

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TrueHello

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

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Brendon Jones

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

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Aneesa Wardle

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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polano-1

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-therePS any site of people who were there?

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WAVESURF4

this is a great piece of the late 60's early 70's festival scene. It is a real moving tribute to a more free wheelin' lifestyle, being that it is one of the last major festivals.Although, a lot of the festival turned out badly (cops being uptight about drugs, violence in the audience, performers threatening not to play because of money, on-stage fires, etc.), an underlying message of hope and peace prevails. The film shows the dying nature of the ideal "hippy" spirit and marks a change in time from the revolutionary late 60's to the more straight laced 70's. Performances by Joni Mitchel, The Who, The Doors, Joan Baez, etc. make it a great concert to watch.

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Brian Washington

This is a good rockumentary. It pretty much captured the events surrounding the last great pop festival of the 1960 era (even though it took place in 1970). It pretty much showed how greed and a more commercial element began to creep in on the rock and roll and how it was beginning to lose its innocence, much like it did at Altamont the previous December. He even shows how many artists were beginning to suffer burn out, as was the case with Jimi Hendrix, who unknown to everyone was making his last major concert appearance in England. Unfortunately, a few weeks later he would die from barbituate intoxication. However, the only complaint I have about the film is that Murray Lerner tended to not to show all the songs as they were performed in their entirety. For example, only the last three minutes of Ten Years After's performance of the song "I Can't Keep From Crying" is shown. On the compact disc of the festival, the song is featured in it's full-length. Another, example is how he seemed to cut the Free classic "All Right Now" to ribbons. This is very annoying for a person who was a huge fan of the song. This also can be seen with Emerson, Lake and Palmer's performance of "Rondo". But even with all its flaws it is a good film.

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George Carr

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.

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