It's not just the fabulous musical performances that make "Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival" so compelling, it's the sheer human drama that involves conflicts between concert promoters and ravenous music fans.
Such a statement isn't meant to slight the performers, who include Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Who and Joan Baez, or even the filmmaker himself. But the behind-the-scenes struggles for the somewhat frazzled promoters to pay the acts and try to make a profit from the massive five-day concert are truly fascinating, even dramatic.
The festival drew 600,000 music fans to the tiny island of Wight, located just off the southern coast of England. But despite the best efforts of organizers, a little less than 60,000 of its spectators actually paid for attendance.
Producer/director Murray Lerner has a heyday capturing the chaos, as master of ceremonies Rikki Farr pleads with the huge throng to pay or at least be peaceful, even though the imposing corrugated iron gates and guard dogs patrolling the grounds obviously indicate there's going to be some sort of ugliness.
That bit of controversy led to the film being delayed for nearly 25 years, but including it was a wise move on Lerner's part. Though the performances, as mentioned, are great, the "warts-and-all" approach the film takes elevates it from being just a good music documentary to a great one.
As for the music itself, well, how can you object to well-shot performances by the Who (doing "Young Man's Blues" and "Naked Eye," the former featuring Pete Townshend's trademark windmill-style guitar strums) and Miles Davis (a mesmerizing jam-style version of "Call it Anything"), as well as an absurd version of "There'll Always Be an England" delivered through a megaphone by Tiny Tim.
For historical significance, Hendrix's stunning versions of "Message to Love," "Machine Gun," "Voodoo Chile," "Foxy Lady" and "Purple Haze" would be his last (he died 12 days later). And Jim Morrison sounds positively chilling performing "When the Music's Over" and "The End" with the Doors — not just because of the ominous song titles, but because they were his last recorded performances as well.
In the way of high (or is it low?) comedy, Lerner captures the concert's promoters greedily counting money by hand while fretting whether they can actually afford all of the scheduled musical acts, as well as Tiny Tim's hypocritical statement that maybe the concert really should be free (even though he asked for his money up front before he would actually perform).
"Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival" is not rated, but would probably receive an R for profanity, some scenes of marijuana use, two brief shots of full female nudity and a couple of vulgar references and jokes.