( 20 reviews )
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Posted: May 13 2009
Great collection of the Flower Power movement. The beginning of Janis, Jimi, almost the end of Otis.
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Posted: Mar 13 2009
This is the ultimate version of the Monterey Pop festival concert. All usable film footage and sound are here on three DVDs. It's a very well done DVD set and the accompanying book is a great addition to the set. It has tons of info. and trivia. The films look and sound as good as they're ever going to and they have several extra bonus features on the DVDs. My only complaint is that they didn't include any footage of the Grateful Dead except for a fleeting glance in a 'making of' documentary. The film maker, D.A. Pennebaker explains that 'the Dead' simply played too long for them to capture 1-2 songs. They are well known for playing 20-30+ minute tunes and the camera operators simply didn't have enough film in their cameras to capture a whole song, so they got left out. Each camera operator only had about 10 minutes of film per film cartridge to shoot with. The filmmaker had a limited budget for film anyway, and we are lucky to see 2-3 tunes by some of the performers. The original plan was to get 1-2 'good tunes' from each band and have a 'good representation' of each group on film. That all basically went out the window when Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding played. The filmmaker and the festival producers had no idea that those 2 bands would be the highlight of the festival. Pennebaker and his crew 'blew their wad' film-wise on Hendrix and Otis Redding. That's why there is a bonus disc of the complete Hendrix and the Complete Otis Redding performances at Monterey Pop. Like I said, the filmed footage looks and sounds as good as it's ever going to because they used the original 1967 film and sound sources that are available. It's in Dolby stereo, but not 5.1 or anything. One goofy part of the DVD set is the inclusion of the footage of Tiny Tim performing at the back stage 'green room'. He is poorly lit, and the sound is sub-par. Pennebaker explains in the liner notes that Tiny Tim was in low light and they could only film him by the light of a Zippo lighter! Over all, this set is worth owning. I recommend it.
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Posted: Jan 23 2009
By the price it should be obvious that this is a single DVD edition of the Monterey Pop Festival at $27.99, and not the 3 disc $70.00 edition as reviewed previously. Nonetheless, it is well worth the price for a 78 minute cross section of what happened in that "summer of love". If you want all 280 minutes of the festival, be sure you get that 3 DVD set. Its well worth it!
