Monterey Pop
Director:
D.A. Pennebaker
Year: 1968
Rating: 6.0
1967. The Summer of Love. When music mattered. None of this bullshit one
song digital downloads or Streaming music. People bought LP's and poured
over the lyrics and the personnel on each song. And listened to them like
their children even when they got all scratched up. You would get to know
each pop on the album. In that summer an amazing group of bands gathered
in Monterey for three days of music. D.A. Pennebaker who had made the classic
Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back the previous year filmed this concert.
But in many ways it is disappointing as hell. What he has included is great
but the running time is 79 minutes. For a three-day concert. The groups that
he shows basically get one song - a few two. A couple of them are classic
- The Who doing My Generation with Townsend smashing his guitar at the end
and then Hendrix trying to out do him by first setting his guitar on fire
and then smashing it. But we only get one song from Simon and Garfunkel,
Eric Burdon and the Animals, Janis Joplin and Country Joe and the Fish.
The main reason I wanted to see this though was to watch the performance
from Otis Redding who gets two songs. I am reading a biography about him
and it begins with his performance at Monterey and says he brings the house
down. He does. Until then he had basically been known to black audiences,
but this put him on the map with white folks. Sadly, this took place in June
- in December he died in a plane crash and after his death The Dock of the
Bay was released and was an enormous hit. His rendition of I've Been Loving
You Too Long sent a shiver down my spine.
So these groups obviously played way more then one song in their set but
that is mainly what we get - and the films ends with Ravi Shankar doing a
17 minute song. 17 minutes of sitar - which admittedly the audience was loving
- more spiritual then I am I assume - and he had zero time for these groups
- Quicksilver Messenger Service, Steve Miller Band, Moby Grape, The Byrds,
Laura Nyro, Buffalo Springfield and The Grateful Dead! But I have found out
that there was a box set released that has two hours of more music. Hopefully
not all Ravi.
Pennebaker at times annoys - when the Jefferson Airplane sing Today which
is a Marty Balin song with him having written it and the lead vocalist -
he only shows Grace Slick singing harmony the entire time - ok I love Grace
as well but an odd choice - which isn't that surprising when put into the
context of his audience shots - almost entirely good looking women - of which
there were many - to the point where it feels kind of creepy and peeping
like. I have to track down the Box Set.