Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now - Live at The Isle of Wight Festival 1970 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now - Live at The Isle of Wight Festival 1970 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 13, 2018

Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro sat on my figurative musical shoulders kind of like the old image of an angel and a devil during my formative listening years, and I had massive crushes on both women as well as their stellar songwriting, at times for diametrically opposed reasons. While she is a native Canadian, as most of her fans will know, Joni always struck me as kind of a golden tressed prototypical California “surfer girl” goddess, the kind you might find out on a hiking trail somewhere (especially after that, um, revealing photo of her inside the gatefold of For the Roses), while Laura was more of a haunted urban soul raging at both inner demons and the external perceived lapses of society. Joni's writing often seemed to center more on relationships, or at least everyday observational analysis, and while Laura certainly had her share of "personal" songs detailing romantic adventures, she could also tend to offer more consistent social commentary in songs like "Save the Country" that were kind of ironically on the order of such now legendary songs as Joni's "Big Yellow Taxi" (one of the songs included on this Blu-ray, and one which combines a certain social criticism with a commentary about a relationship). To take the subtext of a later Mitchell lyric, "People's Parties", I always kind of imagined Joni at parties as the cool blonde in the corner smoking a cigarette and watching the proceedings with an arched eyebrow and nary a comment. Laura on the other hand I could kind of imagine being whatever the late sixties version of a goth girl might be, chuckling in a ragged voice and making barbed comments to herself as she found herself under the influence of at least her inner muse if not any actual "substances". It's kind of interesting, then, to see Joni in at least a somewhat combative mode during the concert portions of this rather interesting kind of half-performance, half-documentary take on her now legendary performance at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970.

The main feature included here is called Both Sides Now, not just a winking reference to what is still one of Mitchell’s best remembered songs, but also an allusion to the fact that the documentary includes not just at least parts of Joni’s concert performance in 1970, but 2003 reminiscences by her about the performance and the Isle of Wight Festival in general. Filmmaker Murray Lerner also wanders around the huge site where the Isle of Wight Festival occurred, getting “man on the street” (hillside?) interviews with various hippie types, many of whom disparage the Festival for being a prime example of music becoming a commodity. Joni addresses this aspect in her 2003 interviews, saying there was a disconnect between the audience and the performers, with many of the performers flaunting their wealth in what Joni felt in 2003 may have led to an “attitude problem” on the part of the hundreds of thousands of people in attendance. (Joni and Neil Young evidently arrived in a “flamboyant” red Rolls Royce.)

Joni’s performance has become well known since it’s alleged the audience was out of hand and completely rude, and that Joni had to kind of assert herself to take control. The actual concert footage actually shows something at least a little different. First of all, as Joni relates in one of her memories, she was thrust on stage hours before she was actually supposed to perform since the promoters of the concert weren’t especially well organized and a number of performers dropped out. That said, the audience is clearly excited to have Joni take the stage, and they’re quite attentive, if noisy (there were a lot of people there), as Joni begins her set with her guitar. But Joni seems kind of out of sorts, and when she just up and stops “Chelsea Morning” part way through, saying she doesn’t much feel like singing it, you can feel a bit of annoyance building in the audience. They still seem “with her”, though, as she goes to the piano, but two things happen in quick succession. First, a guy in the audience has a bad drug reaction, and Joni needs to stop to try to get help to him. Then, another seemingly drug addled guy has managed to get on stage and sits right next to the piano. After she finishes a song, he tries to take control of the microphone to lament the “corporatization” of music (for want of a better term), and of course security intervenes, at which point the audience does go ballistic. Joni seems devastated by it all, barely able to keep functioning and seemingly close to tears. She finally does upbraid the audience, asking for a little “respect”, at which point things calm down.

Her set list is rather short, probably for all these reasons, and she seems just a little out of voice in any case, a bit more strident on her high notes than she tended to be in her recordings from this era. Still, this is a really winning concert and Joni’s reminiscences from 2003 are consistently insightful and at times rather darkly humorous.

While not all of these songs are done in their entirety, this is the putative set list for the concert:

That Song About the Midway (for Mitchell fans who haven’t heard Bonnie Raitt’s version, check it out — it’s splendid)

Chelsea Morning

For Free

Woodstock

My Old Man

California

Big Yellow Taxi

Both Sides Now

Gallery

Hunter

A Case of You

Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now - Live at The Isle of Wight Festival 1970 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, and Universal Music Group with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. The opening credits list things like "Digital Intermediate" and "2K scan", so this has obviously been worked on at least relatively recently. The original aspect ratio of the concert footage has been conformed to 1.78:1, meaning occasional shots don't have much breathing room. The concert footage was obviously shot on film, and the interview segments look like video (and quite possibly upscaled video at that), and so there's an understandably heterogeneous appearance to the presentation. The concert footage does show some signs of age related wear and tear, with a slightly faded palette and occasional nicks and flecks. That said, there's an appealingly organic look with a rough but well resolved grain field during the concert footage. Detail levels are decent in the interview segments, even if things aren't razor sharp a lot of the time.

Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now - Live at The Isle of Wight Festival 1970 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks. Despite the fact that this is a "solo" performance from Joni (in more ways than one), the surround track offers significantly boosted amplitude and quite a bit of breathing room throughout the side and rear channels, even if those channels tend to be filled mostly with background noise from the immense audience. There are a couple of noticeable dips in amplitude during the concert which do not seem to be linked to Joni's proximity to any microphones, and which I am assuming are "baked into" the original audio. Balance is generally very good during the concert sequences, and of course the talking head segments are easy to hear at all times.

Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now - Live at The Isle of Wight Festival 1970 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

While there aren't any advertised Supplements per se on this Blu-ray disc, there is an option to watch only the concert (1080i; 56:27), which is presented in Academy Ratio (see screenshots 16 through 20), and with the same two audio options of the documentary. There are snippets in the concert version not seen in the documentary, though the documentary includes footage not seen in this version, as in the sidebar involving the "protester" who briefly tries to take control of the microphone during Joni's set. The documentary follows this guy outside to listen to part of his statement (drug drenched rant?), while the concert version just stays with Joni after the fracas.

Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now - Live at The Isle of Wight Festival 1970 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm not sure the "drama" that has long been reported about this performance really amounts to all that much, but this is still an often riveting piece that captures Joni at her prime in a solo setting, and also offers her in 2003 offering her quite pointed recollections about the whole affair. Video quality is a little iffy at times, and audio has a few hurdles that are part of the live recording process. With those caveats in mind, though, Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now comes Recommended.