JIMI HENDRIX’S performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival came just a month before his untimely death. Courtesy Laurens Van Houten/Frank White Photo Agency

By Dave Thompson

With the exception of Woodstock, the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival is the most visible classic concert ever held. Full performances by many of the week-long event’s performers are now readily available on DVD… Jimi Hendrix, Leonard Cohen, The Who (a career-best outing), Miles Davis, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, Free and, most recently, The Moody Blues among them; while director Murray Lerner’s cameras were also responsible for a two-hour-plus documentary of the entire event, “Message to Love.” Taken together, they add up to an essential souvenir of a truly legendary event.

Located just off the south coast of England, the Isle of Wight was no stranger to festivals. Events had been staged there in 1968 and 1969, although the 1970 event was to be the biggest of them all — in fact, at the time, it was the largest festival ever staged. Running from Aug. 26-31, 1970, at Afton Down, the attendance has been estimated at anywhere between 600,000 and 800,000 people.

The fact that many of these visitors entered the grounds for free, breaking down the fences around the festival, was material only to the venue’s organizers, Fiery Creations. But Ron Foulks (one half, with brother Raymond, of that team) was adamant. “This is the last festival. Enough is enough. It began as a beautiful dream but it has got out of control and become a monster.”
The Isle of Wight’s residents agreed with him. Reeling from an unprecedented invasion of long-haired pop fans, it would be 2002 before the authorities again opened up their island to a pop festival.

Putting the festival wheels in motion in the first place, Fiery Creations knew they had a hard act to follow. The previous year, Bob Dylan broke a three-year concert silence to play the festival, and when the first plans were laid, it was hoped that The Beatles might be tempted to break their own live embargo to perform.

Of course they wouldn’t — the band broke up in February 1970. But Jimi Hendrix made a fabulous substitute, and with him on board, other artists were quick to add their own cachet to the bill. (See the sidebar for the list of performers.)

“Message To Love” paints a very thorough portrait of the festival itself, both the good (the majority of the featured performers) and the ugly. We see the audience booing Kris Kristofferson after his performance was reduced to sludge by sound difficulties; The Doors performing in near darkness after Jim Morrison refused to allow spotlights on the stage; and, most memorably of all, promoter Gary Farr attempting to restore order by taking the stage and howling the audience down. “We put this festival on, you bastards, with a lot of love! We worked for one year for you pigs! And you wanna tear down our walls and you wanna destroy it? Well, you go to hell!”

By Todd Whitesel

There was a long-running U.S. commercial for StarKist, where a tuna fish named Charlie tried to impress the higher-ups with his intellect and charm. His efforts were shot down with the tag line, “Starkist doesn’t want tuna with good taste. Starkist wants tuna that tastes good.”

In my mind, that idea also applies to audio recordings. There are numerous “test” records and “demonstration” discs recorded solely to impress with sonics that often have no real basis in melody or music. They may be cool collectibles, but I have no interest in records or discs that sound great but lack musical meaning.

The writing on the wall for high-res formats, such as SACD and DVD-Audio, seems more indelible with each passing month. Any new SACD releases — and there are plenty — are overwhelmingly devoted to classical music, and DVD-Audio is being replaced largely by Blu-ray. This means several high-res rock, blues and jazz releases have gone out of print and are now commanding prices three to four times (or more) than their initial MSRP. That makes acquiring many of the best-sounding discs a costly enterprise, assuming you have a machine capable of SACD and/or DVD-Audio playback.

The good news is that players such as Oppo’s BDP-80 can be had for less than $300 and handle all your disc needs, save for Blu-ray. As well, many of the best-sounding digital recordings remain in print. Here are 10 recommended high-res digital releases that not only have good sound but good music.

Miles Davis, “Kind Of Blue” (SACD)
Now out of print, but if you’re going to drop $50 or more on a jazz disc, this is where to start.

Davis’ incalculably influential album starts with little more than a whisper as Paul Chambers plucks acoustic bass, followed by Bill Evans’ angular piano lines, building until Davis enters with horn and the arrangement takes off. “Kind Of Blue” is a recording that makes you glad to be alive and even more so with an excellent SACD mix.

Allman Brothers Band, “Eat A Peach” (SACD)
What’s better than 33 minutes and 41 seconds of “Mountain Jam”? The same tune coming at you in high-res 5.1 surround, with the swirl of Butch Trucks’ and Jaimoe’s drums punctuated by Berry Oakley’s bass grooves and Gregg Allman’s organ chords, all while Dickey Betts and Duane Allman unleash searing guitar lines that seem to emerge from the amps themselves.

Jackson Browne, “Running On Empty” (DVD-Audio)
Browne’s classic live album was reissued in 2005 as a CD/DVD-Audio pairing. Even if you’ve heard this record a hundred times, you’ll discover something new on the superb DVD-Audio mix, whether the two-channel, 24-bit/192kHz version or the 24/96 surround mix.

Bob Dylan, “Blood On The Tracks” (SACD)
These performances are among the most passionate and aching of Dylan’s career. Listen to the strain and emotion in his voice, drenched with regret, on tracks such as “If You See Her, Say Hello” for the most personal look into this most personal album.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer, “Brain Salad Surgery” (DVD-Audio)
I bought this and a handful of other DVD-Audio discs during a retailer’s close-out sale, and I’m glad I did, as this release really opened my ears to what DVD-Audio could do. The high-res remaster brings out the smallest details in every song. What startled me most, though, was hearing Greg Lake’s guitar pick strike each individual string as he arpeggiates chords on “Still… You Turn Me On.”

Elton John, “Tumbleweed Connection” (SACD)
If one artist has benefited the most from getting the SACD treatment on his catalog, it’s Elton John. Six of his classic albums — “Elton John,” “Tumbleweed Connection,” “Madman Across The Water,” “Honky Chateau,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy” — have been reissued on SACD, and they all sound terrific. “Tumbleweed” contains the fewest hits of the lot, but the Old West themes and arrangements are some of John’s and lyricist Bernie Taupin’s best works.

The two bonus tracks, “Into The Old Man’s Shoes” and original version of “Madman Across The Water” are as good, if not better, than anything John ever recorded.

Pink Floyd, “Dark Side Of The Moon” (SACD)
This venerable sonic adventure is taken to new and intimate heights on SACD. From the opening heartbeats of “Speak To Me/Breathe” to the final words spoken after “Eclipse,” this Moon is magnificent.

The Who, “Tommy” (SACD)
Want to invite Keith Moon over but don’t want to clean up after? Give “Tommy” a spin in multichannel SACD, and it’s like bringing the incomparable drummer and his kit right into your listening room. Roger Daltrey’s and Pete Townshend’s vocals are brilliantly served, too.

Porcupine Tree, “Deadwing “(DTS DVD-Audio)
Porcupine Tree mastermind Steven Wilson has long championed music in surround, and this 2005 release serves up plenty of around-the-room goodies, lush and lovely, savage and bleak. The high-res stereo (48/96) mix is just a warm-up for the stunning 5.1 mix. Hearing the monumental “Arriving Somewhere But Not Here,” with its android-like opening funneling through alternative and proggy seas before being bludgeoned by one of the nastiest guitar riffs in history — in surround — is best experienced loud… very loud.

Steely Dan, “Gaucho” (SACD or DVD-Audio)
It’s no secret that Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were studio perfectionists, demanding retake after retake until the results were like polished jade. “Gaucho” often takes jabs for being “too” polished, but I’ll take the horn-driven shine of the title track or the dark tint of “Third World Man” in their high-res beauty.

by Michael Popke

If you frequent online progressive-rock communities, you’ve no doubt seen the question “What is prog?” posted countless times. The responses typically range from the overly intellectual to the downright offensive. So it is with extreme humbleness that I suggest there really is no “right” or “wrong” answer. We like progressive music because it affects us in ways far deeper than practically any other genre (save, perhaps, classical). It can incite an abundance of emotions, including passion, fear, joy, sadness and violence – sometimes all in the same song.  It forces us to move beyond the mainstream and actually think about what we’re hearing. At its core, “prog” means whatever we want it to mean.

When I was young, my dad would sit with me in my bedroom and listen to selections from my latest album purchases (usually by such artists as Styx, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner and Loverboy). But among the last titles I remember us sharing together was Asia’s self-titled 1982 debut. I was 14 years old.

While Asia’s epic synthesizers, grandiose orchestration and Roger Dean artwork may seem hopelessly dated now, it remains a classic album that – despite that dragon on the cover – brought the pretentiousness of Seventies progressive rock to a mainstream audience with a combination of accessible melodies and often-lofty lyrics. Today, Asia isn’t even considered prog in some circles. But for me, it was my introduction to an expansive world of music, one in which long songs about the apocalypse were not only permitted but encouraged. So long, Loverboy.

Prog enthusiasts can argue the merits of Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Marillion, Gentle Giant, Kansas and Camel for years – and they have. Throw some metal into the mix (Queensryche, Dream Theater, Rush and Iron Maiden), and you’ll incite some real heated debate. Queensryche’s lead vocalist Geoff Tate, during an interview with me several years ago, refused to acknowledge that his band played “progressive” music — even though renowned music  journalist Paul Gargano wrote that Queensryche defined “the parameters of progressive rock for mainstream America” in the liner notes to the then-new Live Evolution album.

But if these bands and all of their descendants – Spock’s Beard, RPWL, Pain of Salvation, Opeth, Magic Pie, DeeExpus, Ayreon, Porcupine Tree, Riverside, Symphony X and even Phish and Umphrey’s McGee among them – introduce new ways for us to hear music and provide enjoyment long after we think we’ve heard it all, then we certainly can call them “progressive.” They are advancing our understanding and appreciation of their art.

One of my most recent prog discoveries is Zevious, an aggressive New York City-based instrumental trio that tears a huge hole in the logic of labeling genres. On the band’s 2009 CD, After the Air Raid, Zevious takes influences from contemporary jazz artists like Vijay Iyer, the polymetric metal of Meshuggah, the vintage fusion of the Mahavishnu Orchestra and the avant-garde attitude of Magma. Challenging and not always easy to listen to, After the Air Raid defines adventurous music.

I’ve been in relentless pursuit of the adventure since I dropped the needle on side one of that first Asia record almost 30 years ago.