Festival: Music Of The 70s

Arriving in a plain white box, Festival: Music of the 70s piqued my interest--the 70s being the period of my late adolescence when I regularly listened to Yes, Deep Purple, Steppenwolf, and other bands which absolutely grated on my mother's nerves. I thought about buying a new black light and hauling out an old Blue Cheer poster to set the proper ambiance for watching the tape, but settled for firing up some incense, dimming the lights, and putting sunglasses on my dog. As it turned out, the dog lasted 15 minutes into the tape, which was about 10 minutes longer than anyone else in the family. Without any real introduction (like what year and universe we happen to be viewing), the program opens with an emcee asking for a big round of applause for a band called Nitziger (or at least that's what it sounded like he said). "Nitziger"--a kind of bargain-basement Black Oak Arkansas type--played about 50 minutes worth of standard 2 verses, chorus, 10 minute fade-out 70s tunes (the only actual song name I caught was "Louisiana Cockfight"). "Nitziger" was followed by Michael McCastle, a whitebread Jose Feliciano type who played acoustic guitar and sang about peace and love and the like. Then came Rockwell and Freddie King (looking and sounding a bit like B.B., and possibly related). The highlight of the program came during a crowd shot, where you could see above the bell-bottomed, tye-dyed groovin' crowd a lone kite with the poignant banner "McGovern volunteers are beautiful people." The camerawork was erratic, and the audio so-so, at best. Why this old no-name concert is being released on video now is a complete mystery to me. Not recommended. (See THE WELL-DRESSED MAN'S GUIDE TO THE FIVE CLASSIC TIE KNOTS for availability.)