The Moody Blues: Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival 1970 DVD 2009 16:9 Dolby Digital 5.1

In 1970 The Moody Blues were at their creative and commercial peak. After reinventing themselves from their R&B roots to a much more sophisticated sound, between 1967 and 1970 they released five albums, four of which hit the Top 5 in the UK with two of them going to #1.

They enjoyed similar success in the USA where four of the albums hit the Top 20 and the other was just outside. At the end of August 1970, shortly after the release of their album A Question Of Balance , The Moody Blues took to the stage of the Isle Of Wight Festival in front of an audience estimated at over half a million. This DVD makes that performance available to be seen for the first time.

Product Reviews

Sad to say, not all of the footage that director Murray Lerner shot of the Moody Blues at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival has survived -- with the result that "Are You Sitting Comfortably" and "Minstrel Song," two of the prettier songs in the group's repertory of this period, are only represented as fragments, as part of the opening 20-minute documentary segment of this concert film. The makers felt a framing documentary featuring the members of the band from 2008 was necessary. And it is sort of ironic that this disc appeared just as the Moody Blues' 2009 U.S. tour got underway, which included a gig at Radio City Music Hall in New York with a ticket price of $165.00 and up -- this DVD is a reminder that it has been a long, long time since the Moody Blues have been able to deliver a show worth $165 to very many concertgoers. But back in 1970, with a ticket price of less than $25 for a three-day festival (that quickly got thrown open to hundreds of thousands of gate-crashers), they could deliver most of the goods in front of 600,000 people, working with woefully inadequate stacks of amplifiers and shaky power sources; and drummer Graeme Edge is amazingly animated trying to fill in the group's sound, turning in a more frenzied performance than most people associate with his work on record. The real stars of the show are flautist/singer Ray Thomas (the only member of the classic lineup who did not -- possibly for health reasons -- participate in the documentary; even the long-retired Pinder made an extensive appearance), singer/guitarist Justin Hayward, and bassist/singer John Lodge, who turn in very good performances on their key repertory (Pinder is also in good form, especially vocally, but he's sort of buried behind his Mellotron a lot of the time and, thus, doesn't work the audience much). They're animated enough and, amid their obvious amazement at the size of the crowd (which seems to go out to the horizon), put on a reasonably exciting show. Some of the footage of Hayward singing seems to be cheating, in terms of substituting shots from other sections of given songs, or other songs entirely; but the group does acquit itself very well live, although one wishes that the missing songs were present, to fill out the set. The latter is well put together, with a good balance of the members' work represented, and they couldn't have stage-managed the presentation of "The Sunset" any better, coming as it does just as night falls on the venue, and which allows Hayward to present "Nights in White Satin" in the proper setting as well. "Tuesday Afternoon" this release is unique as the only truly live video performance of the band's classic lineup well worth owning for longtime fans or the curious. And the documentary section in the opening even includes footage of the original, pre-psychedelic Moody Blues doing a live version of "Bo Diddley" from the NME Poll Winners Concert at Wembley. The chaptering is generous and breaks the documentary section down more than adequately, and each song in the concert section gets a chapter marker as well. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

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