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Rating: “This Is The End” had already been announced years earlier by James Douglas Morrison.
I have always thought that the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 represented the end of an era. The sunset of those ideals, of those feelings, as beautiful and significant as they were utopian, born in the first half of the sixties. The hippy movement definitively collapsed here, but Peace and Love had already ended at Woodstock the previous year after reaching its peak at Monterey in 1967.
Love, peace, freedom were too noble values to be allowed to flourish without obstacles. Certainly, it was very simple for the most powerful and arrogant, as well as mean and sly, capitalist country to get rid of a bunch of hippies who wanted to fill cannons with flowers and who soon preferred to be bought with heroin, vile money, and false hopes. It takes much more to attempt to defeat the rulers of this world.
But let's get back to Wight. The "Last of the Great Rock Festivals" with the participation of 600,000 people was an unprecedented financial failure in the sector, but it was also extraordinary for having managed to bring together so many immense artists. Besides the Doors, The Who, Hendrix, Free, Jethro Tull, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Joan Baez, EL&P, Cohen, Donovan, Taste, The Moody Blues, Sly and Family Stone, Pentangle, to name the most important ones that come to mind.
The Los Angeles band did not like playing at large festivals, they had avoided both Monterey and Woodstock and in the other "minor" ones they participated in, they had not found the right feeling to provide unforgettable performances. Jim, John, Ray, and Robby always gave their best in clubs or small arenas. The group, their sound, Morrison especially, needed the physical contact with the audience, to "live" the concert together with their people.
The performances of the Doors were true rituals, regardless of the quality of the performance; this always depended on what Jim would say or do, what he wanted to communicate at that precise moment. Every concert was different, there was a setlist but then it was Jim's soul that decided everything. In their history, we have had epochal concerts and mediocre performances (luckily these latter were fewer than the former). Attending one of their concerts still meant participating in something unique. Sometimes it could be talked about as real theatrical-musical works and not just simple concerts.
Over the decades I have read everything about the band's performance at the Isle of Wight. In the early eighties, I read of a mediocre and dull performance. Then it was gradually re-evaluated, until in recent years it was considered a performance of considerable depth. Miracles of time, or perhaps - how to see things from different perspectives.
“Our set was calm but at the same time intense. We played with a "controlled fury" and Jim was in extraordinary vocal form. He demonstrated all his strength without moving a muscle. Dionysus was chained” Ray Manzarek
After having listened to and watched it in its entirety, my opinion is certainly positive. I knew of a concert different from the usual. I've mentioned the location but, I add, especially for the historic moment the band was experiencing.
To better understand, the first two days of the Festival, the Doors spent in court in Miami for the sham trial: “The State of Florida vs. James Douglas Morrison” in which the singer had to answer various charges including the most "scandalous" one of having shown his genitals... or his dick?! Or both?! Well...
Obviously, no one would care a damn, but the American Pigs (sorry noble animal) wouldn't miss the chance to delegitimize someone who makes too much noise for their tastes.
It will be the fair of the ridiculous with people paid to say "yes, he showed his genitals," while the defense's evidence consisting of a complete recording of the concert in which nothing of the sort is heard (according to the prosecution's "witnesses," the singer allegedly pronounced some introductory phrases to the release of the member, or the balls, or the member plus balls) is not taken into consideration.
The four arrived on the British island the day before the concert, imagine in what psycho-physical conditions. Morrison, for a long time already, is very tired of everything, his role as a sexy and cursed rock star, which he so hated, is now a distant memory and drinking, along with beloved writing, is his favorite pastime.
The band took the stage around two in the morning on August 30th after Ten Years After and ELP and before The Who; let's say their meditative sound turned out to be somewhat out of place among bands that made impact and sonic violence their main characteristic.
The Doors, however, offer a solid, compact performance, without too many frills. Just for this, the performance stands out in the history of their concerts; "solid, compact, and without too many frills" is certainly not the classic phrase associated with one of their performances.
Morrison is strangely calm, more likely just tired. The fact is that he limits himself for one evening to being "just" the singer of the Doors. No shaman dances, no incitement to revolt, no dialogue or squabble with the public, zero poetry or spontaneous thoughts.
Considering everything, he does it very well, offering an excellent vocal performance. John, Ray, and Robby musically have never missed a beat, and this time too they are almost impeccable.
The setlist draws all the songs from the first two albums with the exception of a "Ship Of Fools", which is definitely out of place. From this overly calm attitude of Jim, the more urgent and wild songs like "Break On Through" and "Back Door Man" suffer negatively - the latter without the lacerating initial scream loses half of its strength - while the more reflective tracks manage to have (almost) the usual hypnotic atmosphere. Indeed, everything seems to get better and better over time; especially Jim seems to melt from that state of strange calm.
And indeed the epic finale "The End" is, in my opinion, the most heartfelt and valid part of the show.
“This Is The End” had already been announced years earlier by James Douglas Morrison
The performance at the Isle of Wight was supposed to be the first leg of the band's second European tour, but Judge Goodman imposed its immediate end because the schedule of such an important trial for the fate of humanity could not undergo any changes. Milan and Rome were also among the dates set for that September 1970.
Two years earlier they had delighted the European public on their first - therefore only - tour in the old continent, including that "historic" night in Amsterdam where John, Ray, and Robby delivered an extraordinary performance without Jim, collapsed in front of the stage while Jefferson Airplane was playing. He could have smoked it and not swallowed that smoke a few hours earlier. Canned Heat and Jefferson Airplane, "support bands" and friends, not a bad concert evening, I would say.
End of the tour then and mandatory return to Florida. Here in the following weeks, in addition to attending hearings, flying to an Elvis concert, and reveling in the Bahamas, the band learns the news of the deaths of Jimi and Janis.
For Morrison, already in pieces, these are two very hard blows.
His phrases from those days "Don't worry the end is near hahaha" and "You are looking at number three," if at the time seemed to reflect his innate and mocking sense of humor, will, unfortunately, have another far more tragic meaning a few months later.
“This Is The End” had already been announced years earlier by James Douglas Morrison.
After Wight, the trial, the deaths of the two peers, the band's last two concerts with Morrison who no longer wanted to play live. Then that wonderful last album in which he could finally be just an old blues man and the departure for the noble city to join Pamela, to leave everything behind and start anew...
“This Is The End”.
Ridiculously low price, CD+DVD of a legendary performance. Hahahahah I resemble what's his name, Mastrotta or Mastrota with the pots, madness!
Unfortunately, there were sound system issues (among the many messes of that Festival) and the lighting is poor. We can take this as a feature worthy of the uniqueness of the event.
Roadhouse Blues – Introduction
Back Door Man
Break On Through
When The Music’s Over
Ship Of Fools
Light My Fire
The End (medley: Across The Sea/Away In India/Crossroads Blues/Wake Up)
Bonus Feature: “This Is The End” featurette - with interviews with John, Ray, Robby, and manager Bill Siddons
Enjoy the listening and viewing.
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