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...And certainly before Altamont there was the Monterey International Pop Festival,held in 1967, with a cast of thousands (audience included). The talent included (depicted on film)Canned Heat,Big Brother & The Holding Company,Featuring Janis Joplin,The Who,Ravi Shankar,and yes...The Jimi Hendrix Experience (!) Also representing (but didn't make it to the final cut of the film),The Grateful Dead, The Quicksilver Messanger Service,etc. All of this,plus more was filmed by D.A.Pennebaker (Don't Look Back). We are also treated to shots of the festival being prepared the day before the festival (as there was in Woodstock),plus other footage of behind the scenes (concert producer John Phillips on the phone with Dionne Warwick's management about her supposed to be on the bill). But certainly,the musical performances are the real star attraction of the film. We get to see Janis Joplin belt out 'Ball & Chain'for an astonished crowd. Country Joe & The Fish play some real nice jam based instrumental music. The Who lash out 'My Generation' for the audience (with Pete Townsend trashing his guitar on stage),and Jimi Hendrix one-upping them by setting fire to his Stratocaster during a rendition of the Troggs 'Wild Thing' that visibly has members of the audience stunned,and Ravi Shankar & musicians play an inspired set of Indian classical music that gets the audience on their feet & applauding wildly. All of this (and more)make 'Monterey Pop' one of the original rock doc experiences a "must see". Not rated,but contains a few scenes of pot smoking & a few audience members getting their groove on with a psychedelic gleam in their eye,and a rude word,or two.
score 10/10
druid333-2 10 August 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2109533/ |
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30-11-2019 20:15:04
