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Terrific package remembering the very first rock festival with hours
of materials.
October 20, 2009
by John Henry
Wow! - a terrific hi-def/hi-res remembrance of the very first rock
festival, and I was there! With all the attention going to the
Woodstock DVD & Blu-ray reissue package as well as the movies, it's
only natural that the festival that began it all two years earlier
also be re-exposed to everyone who wasn't there or wasn't paying
attention. The range and variety of performers was mind-boggling, and
the festival itself was quite small compared to the immense
gatherings - good and bad - that were to follow elsewhere.
This landmark documentary by D.A. Pennebaker looks terrific
considering it was shot on 16mm and often under very difficult
lighting conditions. I was surprised that the Wally Heider Studio of
San Francisco made 8-channel tapes of all the festival
performances. The analog soundtrack for the Blu-ray was remastered
at 24 bits and Pro Tools HD was used to manually remove all the
clicks, thumps, buzzes and hum. The original footage had been
enlarged to 35mm for showing theatrically in the late 60s, and the HD
transfer to Blu-ray used both the 35mm and 16mm - whichever happened
to look the best in the transfers. Various systems were of course
used to remove the dirt, grain, noise and other problems with the
original footage. The images are somewhat more detailed on the
Blu-ray than the earlier DVD Criterion set, but considering this all
started out with 16mm footage it's not that much of a transformation.
However, the soundtrack is a whole new situation, with the lossless
DTS-HD surround often delivering a real feeling of being right there
on the festival grounds in Monterey. There are some discrepancies
between the sound and screen images; often only the lead singer or
guitarist is heard and the other performers seen onstage are
enthusiastically doing their thing but as far as the viewer is
concerned, doing it silently. The other big difference between the
standard DVD set and the Blu-ray is that the Blu-ray is actually
cheaper due to the huge storage capacity of the discs! The DVD set
requires three discs - the third one is devoted to the two hours of
Outtake Performances - but here that is combined on a single disc
with both the short documentaries on Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding.
There were very few musical duds during the Pop Festival. Laura Nyro
and Hugh Masekela seemed to be the least successful, although Nyro
seems to hold her own during the Outtakes. Lou Adler describes how
there was almost a fight backstage between The Who and Jimi Hendrix
about which one would go onstage first. When Hendrix came in second
he vowed to outdo the wild Britishers, and he did. Both made a high
art out of destruction of their instruments. It's clear why the
Hendrix and Redding performances rated separate films of their
own. None of the performances in the feature film outplay their
welcome, but then maybe of them are only seen doing a single number.
There have long been complaints that although in the reviews of the
festival at the time, and in those in the 60-page note booklet, the
Grateful Dead performances were credited as gangbusters, yet the band
doesn't appear in either the feature or the Outtakes! Evidently
something went wrong and they weren't even filmed or the footage was
unusable; it couldn't have been clearance problems since the Dead are
known for their encouragement of fans to audio and videotape them
freely. Also, there is only a single tune from Janis Joplin in the
feature - rather surprising since she was one of the most amazing
hits of the weekend. I was disappointed the Paul Butterfield Blues
Band didn't get a number in the feature film since they were one of
my personal favorites.
Let me close by alerting readers to one of the other of many extras
of this set: the terrific candid shots of the beautiful people
attending, on the festival grounds and closeups in the audience. The
Ravi Shankar raga which closes the feature film (just part of his
3-hour performance) is heard on the soundtrack, but for some time it
is accompanied only by quick shots of festival attendees. Finally we
are shown Shankar and the other two players for the exciting
conclusion of the piece and the film. I recognized several of the
standout people because they're also in a Super 8 Monterey Pop short
I made myself. Hard to miss a bald-headed guy whose entire head is
covered with colorful illustrations of various sections of the brain…
--
The Complete Monterey Pop Festival, Blu-ray (1967/2009)
Three Documentaries directed by D.A. Pennebaker
Artists include: The Mamas and the Papas, Canned Heat, Simon and
Garfunkel, Hugh Masekela, Laura Nyro, The Association, Eric Burdon
and the Animals, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis
Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Country
Joe and the Fish, Otis Redding with Booker T. and the MGs and the
Mar-Keys, Ravi Shankar, The Blues Project, The Byrds, The Electric
Flag, Al Kooper, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Quicksilver Messenger
Service, Tiny Tim
Studio: Janus Films/The Criterion Collection 167 (2 discs) [Release
date: 9/22/09]
Video: Mostly 4:3 color (1.33:1)
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, DD 5.1, PCM Stereo
Extras: Restored hi-def transfers from the 16mm originals of all 3
films - supervised by Pennebaker, The Outtake Performances - 2 hours
of performances not included in the feature film, Audio commentaries
by Pennebaker, Festival producer Lou Adler, music critics &
historians Charles Shaar Murray and Peter Guralnick, Video interviews
with Pennebaker & Adler, and with Otis Redding's manager, Audio
interviews with John Phillips, Festival publicist Derek Taylor, and
performers David Crosby and Cass Elliot, Photo essay by Elaine Mayes,
Original theatrical trailers and radio spots, Pop Festival Scrapbook,
Illustrated booklet with essays by critics Michael Lydon, Barney
Hoskyns, Armond White & David Fricke
Length: feature - 79 minutes; Jimi Plays Monterey - 49 minutes;
Shake! Otis at Monterey - 19 minutes; Outtake performances - 2 hours
Rating: *****
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