What's Going On: Taste - Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

What's Going On: Taste - Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 25, 2015

Despite having sold tens of millions of records over the course of a relatively long and successful career, Rory Gallagher remains one of the more strangely underappreciated and lesser remembered masters of the guitar. Perhaps even stranger is the relative lack of awareness of Taste, the band that Gallagher founded and helmed and which released two very well received albums on Polydor back in the day, before disbanding, allowing Gallagher to go on to the bulk of what would be the rest of his sadly short life as a solo artist (Gallagher died in 1995 at the age of 47 in the wake of liver problems, which included a transplant). Taste’s critical impact was frankly more noticeable than any outsized presence on the charts, but over the years the band has continued to accrue accolades, and as is obvious in the documentary What’s Going On, which offers a history of Gallagher and the band as well as their performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, a lot of celebrated musicians still hold Taste and Gallagher in very high esteem. Murray Lerner, who won an Oscar for From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China, provides an array of interesting talking heads segments, along with archival video of Gallagher and the various iterations of Taste, as well as concert footage from the Isle of Wight Festival (Lerner is also responsible for two other Wight-centric documentaries, Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight and Message of Love: The Isle of Wight Festival).

Since the documentary is not “just” the concert, the play list for Taste isn’t overly lengthy, but what’s available in both the documentary and the “concert only” option prove quite admirably how viscerally exciting Taste and Gallagher could be. Moving through a wide array of tunes and even styles, the band is consistently rhythmic and propulsive, and Gallagher’s voice is alternately movingly poignant and gravelly forceful.

Taste’s set list is:

1. What’s Going On
2. Sugar Mama
3. Morning Sun
4. Gambling Blues
5. Sinner Boy
6. Same Old Story
7. Catfish Blues
8. I Feel So Good

What's Going On: Taste - Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

What's Going On - Taste Live at the Isle of Wight is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Music Group, Capo and Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. According to the press sheets accompanying this release, the original 16mm elements were restored for this release, but even so, viewers must have appropriate expectations, especially with regard to the live concert footage. While sharpness and clarity are at least adequate, they're rarely if ever really exceptional, and midrange shots can tend to look somewhat fuzzy, with an expectedly heavy grain field. Close-ups reveal decent but never overwhelming amounts of detail. The interview sequences are at least marginally sharper, but even those never really rise to exemplary levels of sharpness. As should be expected, the archival video tends to be variable in quality, though most of the stills look sharp and well defined.

What's Going On: Taste - Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

What's Going On - Taste Live at the Isle of Wight defaults to an LPCM 2.0 track, but my advice is switch over to the also included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, for it presents the music with a lot more amplitude and force, and an especially heightened sense of acuity in the mid to lower ranges. All of the music sounds clear and well mixed, with Gallagher's sometimes plaintive vocals rising above the battery of the rhythm section, and the talking heads segments have no problems whatsoever.

What's Going On: Taste - Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Beat Club Sessions (1080i; 16:26) include If The Day Was Any Longer; It's Happened Before, It'll Happen Again; and Morning Sun.


• Music Videos (Mono Audio Only (1080i; 7:47) include I'll Remember; What's Going On; and Born on the Wrong Side of Time.

Though not listed as a supplement per se, there's also an option play the Concert Only [4:3] (1080i; 55:29). The supplements score above counts this option as part of the supplemental package.

What's Going On: Taste - Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

What's Going On - Taste Live at the Isle of Wight has the interlinked attributes of providing the best footage of the band at the height of their powers at the Isle of Wight Festival, along with an very appealing documentary that may help to further inform interested fans and neophytes about the importance of Taste and Gallagher within the ranks of Irish rock bands. Video is a bit spotty, but acceptable, but audio is excellent. Recommended.