PopSyndicate.com

The Moody Blues perform in front of 600,000 fans with current band interviews.

The Moody Blues are one of the few famous bands from the ‘60s and ‘70s to survive and maintain their popularity into the 21st century. The British quintet now offer The Moody Blues: Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival 1970, the DVD companion to their Live At The Isle Of Wight CD. Famed director Murray Lerner takes us through TMB’s “Threshold of a Dream.”

Justin Hayward (guitars/lead vox) states in the interviews that he wasn’t even aware that Lerner was filming the show but glad that he did because no one else has this footage. Sadly, all of the footage Lerner shot is no longer usable so the DVD presents footage and songs which could be salvaged. What has been saved looks great and sounds pretty good for being nearly 40 years old.

Interviews with Graeme Edge (drums), John Lodge (bass/vox) and Mike Pinder (organ/Mellotron/vox) in addition to Hayward’s interview begin the disc with the band’s music playing in the background. Footage from the show is interspersed throughout these interviews. The band gives a lot of interesting insight into the festival, where they were as a band at that time in their career (including footage from the mid-60’s showing them as the Blues Rock band they started out as) and an interesting look into the Mellotron, literally. For those who aren’t sure what a Mellotron is, it was (and still is) an amazing keyboard instrument from the early days of synthesizers that took tape recordings and looped the tape within the machine so the musician could perform songs with trumpet, flute and other sounds. It was a finicky instrument, primarily due to humidity, but Pinder not only explains the instrument but lets the camera go into the works of the Mellotron to show the viewer how it works. (Yes, the synth geek in me came out.)

For some odd reason flautist/vocalist Ray Thomas is not interviewed. He did retire from the band about 7 years ago. It could be due to health issues.

Once the DVD kicks into the actual concert it’s a fun look back at the culture and music of the era as 600,000 fans crowded onto the Isle of Wight. That’s the equivalent of taking the population of Boston, Massachusetts and sticking them all on a rocky, and hilly island used primarily for farming. Only one nude female body and only one curse word shows up, so nothing much to worry about in that regard.

The show begins with “Gypsy” and moves to the sweeping sounds of “Tuesday Afternoon.” “Never Comes the Day” follows and it’s obvious as you watch the band perform that their music was not so simplistic and that the musicianship was top notch. That being said, one of my favorite songs, “Tortoise and the Hare” sounds good, musically, but the vocals seem a bit off. Not sure if the guys were just having a bad night or if, as I’ve seen happen live, the monitor equipment wasn’t up to snuff and they were having a difficult time hearing one another to be able to harmonize.

“Question,” “The Sunset,” “Melancholy Man” all precede their trademark tune, “Nights In White Satin,” which sounds spectacular. They finish with “Legend Of A Mind,” one of the few songs Thomas sings lead on. It also has a lengthy flute solo that he performs. This is the song about Timothy Leary for those of you not as familiar with the band’s song titles.

The Moody Blues were known for not doing encores, but they are talked into coming back in front of one of the largest assemblies ever to perform “Ride My See Saw.”  This is really interesting because despite some of the lack of vocal harmonizing, the footage is an amalgam of the Isle of Wight show along with footage from their 1968 Colour Me Pop appearance, Live at Montreux 1991, A Night at Red Rocks (1993) and Legend of a Band. The band gives final thoughts on why they still perform before “”I’m Just A Singer (In A Rock N Roll Band)” leads out the credits.

The subtitles do not appear during the songs, but anytime the band speaks the titles are available in English, Dutch, Spanish or French. Audio is available as Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS Surround Sound. The DVD is widescreen and runs about 80 minutes. There are no special features but there is a 4 page booklet about the band and the festival.

We always hear, “If you remember Woodstock then you weren’t there.” Does the same hold true for Isle of Wight 1970? Was it just a dream, or just fantasy?

4