MOTM

In a message dated 10/31/99 1:07:43 AM, DAVEVOSH@... writes:

><< alternates 
> between a band's performance and some nasty looking business meetings.
>If 
> you've heard the lore around this festival, you can imagine what I mean
>
>(BTW, 
> one of the guys in the meeting is identified as "Ray, The Promoter" --
>and I 
> kept thinking, "gee, that looks a lot like Ray Davies looked in 1970").


Yes! That Ray Davies! Yes it would be weird if true, he may have just put up 
some money though. And of course it might not be him at all.

>as in ray davies of the kinks - ? - weird if true. the two films shown
>on 
>local cable were all performance, no meetings etc.. might have almost been
>assembled from unused footage. interesting though and better than something
>with meetings intercut, IMHO. don`t really know anything of the festival`s
>lore, by all means, tell on.......


The film is "Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival" -- I'm sure it's 
available everywhere. If you're talking about two films that show The Who and 
Hendrix respectively, then yes this is a different film which shows one or 
two songs from maybe 15 or 20 performances -- I remember Joni Mitchell's 
songs being really good. I think I pointed out that there was a nice maybe 10 
minute bit of Miles and (probably one of the first shows by) ELP who are 
maybe doing Pictures at an Exhibition.

The lore of this festival is that it falls about a year after a festival on 
the Isle of Wight, and a year after Woodstock. Well Woodstock quickly became 
a free festival when far more people started showing up before it began than 
were expected. The promoters lost a huge amount of money on the festival, and 
the only way they made any back was by selling away the film and album 
rights, and by selling the Woodstock concert name and logo (I think this is 
the basic story at least). The Isle of Wight promoters didn't want to make 
that same mistake, so they erected a fence which no one could see through, 
and enforced security so one had to pay admission in order to see the show. 
The concert attendees had also heard of Woodstock, and assumed that as long 
as they showed up they could get in for free. So there was this huge tension 
between the fans, the acts, and the promoters. As Townshend introduces Young 
Man Blues he mistakenly says: "This next song's called Blues" after realizing 
his mistake he adds: "Blues... for all you people who paid to get in."

It's worth seeing the film if only for the Miles and ELP bits and other good 
stuff too --- if only to see that the people who got out of hand at this 
years "Woodstock" weren't any worse than people were thirty years ago. 
JB