Product Details

• Actors: Jimi Hendrix, Billy Cox, Mitch Mitchell
• Directors: Murray Lerner
• Producers: Murray Lerner, Alan Douglas
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Rhino / Wea
• VHS Release Date: October 22, 1996
• Run Time: 56 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304204019
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #276,805 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Shot less than three weeks before Jimi Hendrix's death, this middle-of-the-night concert is set at the conflict-ridden Isle of Wight festival, a troubled event well-documented in Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival 1970 by Murray Lerner, whose expanded footage of Hendrix comprises this movie. Not one of Hendrix's stellar performances, and frayed a bit by the late hour and equipment problems, the concert nevertheless finds the legendary guitarist in a gracious mood, asking the crowd to be patient with his tuning and even allow him to start one song over after a bumpy start. Backed by Mitch Mitchell on drums and Buddy Cox on bass, Hendrix's playing on "Voodoo Chile" and "Machine Gun" has power but lacks snap, yet most of his mid-song solos prove bold and lyrical. Everything pulls together, however, for a hypnotic rendering of "Red House," which instantly sets down a snaking groove and gives Hendrix room for some jittery phrases. The overall portrait seems to be of a Promethean artist perhaps a bit bored and certainly tired, but fans should find much to celebrate here. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For hard core Jimi fans only, March 18, 1999

By 

DC from TX (Round Rock, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Isle of Wight [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a must have for all hardcore Jimi fans like myself. However, this is not really one of his best performances. He went on stage at 2AM in the morning, and looks very tired by the middle of the set. He was plagued with equipment problems, and clearly not happy with his playing on many tunes. Many of these were new songs,not fully worked out, and it shows. That said, however, when it clicks, it's Jimi The Master shining through. Red House is the stand out track,proof that Jimi was a master blues player.Machine Gun and Voodoo Chile have some stunning soloing as well. If you are a novice Hendrix fan, I would recommend you get Jimi at Monterey instead, which is easily his best filmed performance.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's OK...but Blue Wild Angel is better..., June 10, 2003

By 

Walter Five (13th Floor Elevator, Enron Hubbard Bldg. Houston Texxas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Isle of Wight (DVD)

for YEARS this was all we had of Jimi's appearance at the Isle of Wight. It's a shorter, lo-fi version of Wild Blue Angel.

Unless you lived with this version, and don't care otherwise, buy the newly released Blue Wild Angel DVD instead, it has MUCH better sound, and the complete performance. Well, almost complete. The CD has two or three tracks, like "Hey Baby/New Rising Sun" that you won't find here.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Over edited, but still indispensible (DVD), October 2, 2000

By 

Stephen McLeod (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Isle of Wight (DVD)

I join Michael C. Young's complaints concerning the editing of this footage (see his customer review of May 7, 2000). I can't, however, join his final judgment. Young's review may be a little misleading.

First, although hefty solos were indeed cut, the cuts are pretty clean and the editors left in lots and lots of extended solos in between nearly every verse of the best songs.

Second, Young's review may give some the impression that this film is like so many other unfortunate visual records of Hendrix performances, bits and pieces of music woven into the fabric of whatever narrative/interview neccessity the project advanced. (Think just about any Hendrix "film" you've seen). Not so. The songs all have beginnings, middles, and ends, and where solos are cut, the songs aren't interrupted with inane, self-serving interviews with folks whose fifteen were up long, long ago.

Third, and probably much more controversially, I would argue that, because we know for a FACT that Hendrix himself was highly self-critical, that he used concerts as much as the studio to work out his improvisational vocabulary for a given song, and that he had no idea that this was going to be more or less his last documented guitar playing, maybe the cuts were made in the interests of creating a cleaner account of the songs. I can't say that I would agree with the choices made. Young's point on "Machine Gun" is absolutely right. But I don't agree that the neccessity of editting itself was either shameful or somehow heretical, as Young seems to suggest.

This is not a biographical document. It is the document of a concert. That's why I think that, while Young makes good points, the film is not nearly as bad as he says it is. Plus, if you've got the DVD version, you've got access to a marriage of sound a visuals that just haven't been available before.

I give it four stars because, for the "serious" fan or curious fan (there can be no "casual" Hendrix fan), the DVD version of this release has over an hour of visionary guitar playing. Since I wouldn't hold my breath for any less edited release (especially now that it's committed to DVD), I think this will more than "have to do." The improvisations preserved on this recording are as intense and masterful as anything currently available. Add to that the simple fact that this is a visual document of Jimi playing less than 3 weeks before his death, and a wonder it was, thank God, and I just say you've got to have it.

That all being said, it is a shame that so much was left behind. Alas.