The Who - Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
by Murray Lerner
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: John Entwistle, Keith Moon, Pete Townshend, Ricki Farr, Roger DaltreyDirector: Murray Lerner
Brand: RED Distribution
Producer: Murray Lerner
Editor: Einar Westerlund
Editor: Greg Sheldon
Producer: Bill Curbishley
Producer: Robert Rosenberg
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Original recording remastered
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 85 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-08-10
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Eagle Rock Ent
Movie Reviews of The Who - Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
Movie Review: A+++Rock and Roll
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the best film documents of rock'n'roll ever, "Listening to You: The Who Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970" captures a legend of rock at the absolute height of its powers.
If you're expecting a high-fidelity kind of Event Coverage that Sees All and does everything except an indepth study of John Entwistle's nose hair, you either were born too late or have gotten too spoiled by culture and technology. It's easy to forget that at the time this concert took place in 1970, Led Zeppelin didn't sell cars and the Rolling Stones didn't shill for Bill Gates. Rock was youth music, viewed with suspicion by Old People (i.e., over 30. Yes, if you're 34, old as you may feel, you were probably an embryo when this gig went off). You never heard real rock on TV, and had to hunt to find it on radio. The Square View was what prevailed in the national media: squeaky guitars, flashing discotheque lights and gyrating girls in plastic dresses and boots. Hippies figured in there somewhere. But the so-called general public, i.e., you, if you were over 30 at the time, didn't know what rock sounded like. The huge potential of the young as consumers was just being sniffed about by The Establishment.
Then there's the filming. Murray Lerner's crew was, well, about as big as your immediate family. There was no Sky Cam. You had a camera here, one there, one someplace else. They pivoted when the person holding them did. OK, not that home-movie primitive, but essentially a hand operation. Rock gigs weren't mass merchandise yet, and you couldn't buy plane, hotel and concert tix on the Internet (something that makes the enormous gatherings at places like Monterey, Woodstock and the Isle even more amazing in retrospect and attests to the pangenerational power of the infant Rock). So big technology wasn't being catered to, even to the extent it existed at the time, because the big money wasn't there yet to cater to it. (I once bought a Led Zeppelin ticket from a scalper. For twenty bucks. That kind of money is what we're talking about here.) Filming the Stones or the Who was like filming a Vietnam firefight, only without the ordnance.
So don't complain about how few camera angles there are, or how the same stuff keeps getting filmed. (As one who saw this lineup from the second row one night, I can tell you that Daltrey really did do the same stuff, over and over and over.) Focus instead on how everyone in this band plays lead - unlike the Stones, for example, who anchored firmly to a dynamic yet by comparison pedestrian rhythm section - yet everyone, somehow, stays right on time, even when somebody screws up! (Pay attention; it happens more than once.) Focus on the incredible energy and fluidity Townshend brings to the guitar, and the Olympic athleticism of his physical presence. Focus - and this disk does, further evidence that this crew knew its stuff - on John Entwistle's breathtaking finger runs up and down the fretboard, and on how much he holds down the sound and plays second guitar through Pete's flights of fancy and violence. Focus on Keith Moon! You can't help it; the camera loves him, and he loves it back, and he shows here why he probably didn't need to so much as lift a finger between shows to keep the weight off. Focus on Daltrey's stage presence; he was immobile compared to Mick Jagger, but knew how much to do of what when, and sang the roof off the joint. There is enough, no, wait, way more than enough, way more than an abundance, of every single thing that made The Who great to see and hear on this DVD. Yes, the modern monkeying with the picture and sound helped a lot. And what the heck is wrong with that, eh?
Focus on what you can see, and be happy that you can see it. Shot in 1970? Sometimes, it's hard to believe. If someone wants to erect a monument to The Who, this film, playing in perpetuity on a Pyramid-size screen, will do. Quite nicely, thank you.
Summary of The Who - Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
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