NOTHING IS EASY: LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 1970

I have only very recently bought this DVD (I mean like within the past week) and maybe I should watch it more than once before I review it but I don't think my opinion will change enough to change my rating. But who knows? Anyway Im rambling on, which is actually kind of relevant to the contents of this DVD there is rather a lot of rambling in this DVD, both the actual performance and the bits in between. I mean the documentary style approach was quite fun to begin with, it switches between present day Ian Anderson remembering the isle of wight festival and footage of people arriving for the festival. Sadly, rather a lot of the people at the festival are VERY stereotypical hippies, who aren't really that peaceful to be honest, hurling rubbish at the stage when the announcer says they have to move out to give JT a chance to do a sound check. This documentary gives us a good look at the battle of hippies vs establishment and actually both sides come off looking bad in this. The hippies seem to want to just moan about everything and the establishment blame everything on the hippies (and even on the bands themselves). This is all quite interesting but after about 10 minutes of not seeing Jethro Tull perform a complete song it starts to wear a little bit thin. I mean if I'd wanted to watch a documentary about the Isle of wight festival I would have watched one on tv (I'm sure of seen one before) and it's all very well and good hearing Ian talking about the origin of the one legged stance but I've heard him explain it before (on the Classic Artists: Jethro Tull DVD). come on for gods sake, let's see what I bought this DVD for a bit of classic JT performance! we do get that after about 15 minutes. They perform a whirlwind version of My Sunday Feeling, one of their best pieces on the first album, it's great here. You really need to see Ian Anderson's stage antics to believe them and they are probably the best part of the whole thing for me. They are a bit 'amateur dramatics' as modern Ian puts it. There are some great quotes from Ian Anderson actually like 'I didn't have to play it all the time, I just had ton wave it around and look good' and 'This next number features the hideous Martin Barre'. Even before Martin was bald, Ian made fun of him then! The stand out songs presented are 'My God' and 'Dharma for one'. The former is a very progressive piece with an entertaining flute solo and the latter is about as heavy as jethro Tull get with some notable organ work from John Evans and of course Clive Bunker's drum solo. 'Nothing is easy' is really great too, showing how tight the band could be rather than rambling of like they do in some of the other numbers. Really then there are only four entire songs presented here that use original footage, as the encore medley uses recycled footage throughout. On the cd, this isbone of the better tracks but I couldn't concentrate on the song properly, due to fact that I was seeing recycled footage. Did they really think we wouldn't notice, I mean there are some major continuity errors: Clive Bunker's hat jumps on and off of his head and John Evan keeps swapping sides of the stage with Flash-like speed it would appear!

So to wrap up a very rambly review, there are some excellent performances and some great snapshots of what life was like at the end of the era of peace and love but they didn't quite the balance of the two right. Thank god I'll be able to skip of it next time I watch it. I'm sure if this was just the actual JT performances, this would be four or five stars but then the DVD would only be about 40 minutes long. Oh and why is a song for Jeffrey put where it is. It's absolutely pointless to put that in t he middle, when they could have put it at the start at least. I prefer the cd honestly it's more straightforward and has 'with you there to help me' and 'to cry you a song' in their rightful places too.

Don't get me wrong the performances will blow you away and any Tull fan should get this but get Madison Square Garden first just to be safe.

PS CD review coming up soon!

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