In August 1970, more than 600,000 people invaded the Isle of Wight, located near the south coast of England and populated in the ordinary times by less than 100,000 inhabitants, to attend the third edition of the Pop Music Festival. It was not only one of the largest festivals of its kind ever organized, but also a historical event, that took place at the transition between two eras in rock music. It was just after the 60s, when American rock, blues and soul met with English pop on the fertile ground of the social revolt of the young generation in Europe and the United States and of the hippie movement. The commercial period which was to turn rock music into a huge industry in the 70s had started. The Isle of Wight Festival not only gathered many of the most important talents of the genre, but also reflected the conflict between the naive and anarchist conceptions of the ‘Flower Power’ generation and the expanding music industry. The chance makes that this huge but controversial event was filmed (well) by a team led by director Murray Lerner. But a quarter of a century will pass until the film of the ‘Message to Love‘ about the festival could be finished and presented for the first time. Now, almost another quarter of a century later, I also had the chance to see it.
Exceptional music was played in 1970 at the Isle of Wight Festival. Groups like The Who, Ten Years After or Jethro Tull were at the peak of their youth and musical force. Jimi Hendrix gave his last great concert here less than three weeks before his death in London, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer sang for the first time in public what would become their power play work – ‘Pictures in an Exhibition ‘. The versions sung here with ‘The End’ by The Doors or ‘Nights in White Satin’ by Moody Blues are among the best of their careers. Joan Baez’s voice sounds exceptional undertaking a cover of ‘Let It Be’, and Leonard Cohen looks young and rebellious, very different from the one we knew at the end of his life and career. The presence of Miles Davis demonstrates how relative the boundaries between musical genres are. Even the appearances of Kris Kristofferson and Joni Mitchell, faced with a hostile and unruly audience, have authenticity and finally overcame the conditions around. The filmed music, however, occupies only about half of the two hours of the film, as the attention of director Murray Lerner turned to the extra-musical events that also had their importance and message.
It seems that out of the over 600 thousand spectators only about 60 thousand paid the entrance tickets that cost … 3 pounds. The rest remained outside the enclosed enclosure, loudly pressing to enter. Eventually, the organizers gave up and declared that the festival was free allowing everyone to enter, but the result was bankruptcy for them and an ecological disaster for the place where the concerts took place. The outcome was that the British Parliament banned such events on the island, and the 1970 festival was the last of its kind. The record and concert industry will completely take over rock music over the next few years, the stars will start to earn (and waste) huge amounts of money, while music lovers will become accustomed to paying expensive tickets to see and listen live to their idols. More than anything else, the Isle of Wight Festival was an end of the romantic, drugs-and-music-for-free era. Murray Lerner‘s film catches the essential aspects of those days of musical and extra-musical madness and the characters involved in organizing the festival. ‘Message to Love‘ is a valuable documentary not only because of the music but also, or perhaps especially because, of the events that took place around the music.