Isle of Wight 1970

On September 18, 2015, Eagle Rock Entertainment released What’s Going On – Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival 1970 by Taste. This simultaneous release on DVD, Blu-ray, 2LP, CD, and Digital Formats represents the first-ever video release of this legendary performance. What’s Going On – Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival tells the story of Eire’s seminal rock band Taste. Formed in Cork, Ireland in 1966 by Rory Gallagher, Taste had a brief but influential career, releasing two studio albums in 1969 and 1970 and disbanding shortly after their legendary appearance at the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival — the centerpiece of this film…

This release is a bit like stepping into a time warp – before they were a folk-rock band and before they were a progressive rock or art rock band, Jethro Tull were pretty much a loud rock & roll band working from a blues base, with a few elements of jazz and folk thrown in, and that's mostly what you've got there. The dominant instrument is Martin Barre's heavily amplified, chord-driven lead guitar playing, which crunches and slashes with the best of them on most of this performance – Ian Anderson's vocals, flute, and acoustic guitar are present, to be sure, and they find a balance on the then-new song "My God," but even at the their folkiest and droning-est, Tull were still a hard rock band in those days with an irresistible propulsive force in their work.

Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 is a live album by Jethro Tull, released on 2 November 2004. It was recorded on the fifth and last day of the Isle of Wight Festival 1970, where Jethro Tull were second on the bill between The Moody Blues and Jimi Hendrix.

On August 31, 1970, Leonard Cohen was scheduled to play the third Isle of Wight Festival. The conditions were not optimal. While 100,000 or so tickets had been sold, there were nearly 600,000 in attendance. Fans overran the island to see and hear the Who, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, and many others over five days…

This double CD is pretty similar in sound and content to the expanded Live at Leeds album, except there's much more from Tommy, and a few semi-obscure numbers like "I Don't Even Know Myself," "Water," and "Naked Eye." Hardcore Who fanatics seem to prefer Live at Leeds, which was recorded only a few months before this material. That viewpoint is understandable: the performances are sharper on Leeds, and if you're not a big-league fan, that single-disc set is a more economical survey of the band in concert during this era. If you do like the Who a lot, though, Isle of Wight is worth having. The sound and performances are decent, although be aware that the band's on-stage version of Tommy omits some decent songs from the opera, such as "Sensation" and "Underture."

Although it was technically the band's second show together, rock historians generally regard this performance as the real debut of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. The first ELP album was still months away and no one in the crowd had ever heard of the band or its music, but the trio put on a great show that was touted as a huge popular and critical success. In retrospect, there can be little debate that this performance at the legendary Isle of Wight Music Festival launched ELP internationally and, listening to this disc, one can definitely hear flashes of the innovation and daring that would later thrust ELP to the forefront of the progressive rock movement. Though bearing the wrinkles and spots typical of a festival recording, this CD (created using original soundboard masters and digitally remastered 27 years after the actual event) is an experience beautifully illustrating what made ELP - from day one - a group unlike any that had come before…

Eagle Records’ 2010 release of The Who Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 is essentially a repackaged reissue of Legacy’s 1996 archival release, containing the same 30 songs over two discs. This, of course, makes sense: both CD editions contain the entirety of the concert, which was heavily bootlegged before the official 1996 release. Eagle Records doesn’t change anything but the cover art, but it doesn’t need to: this is one of the Who’s legendary live shows, not as good as Live at Leeds but running a close second, and is certainly worthwhile for any serious fan.