The Moody Blues: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970

Filmed at the Isle of Wight Festival in August 1970 before a huge audience (over 600,000), this classic Moody Blues concert/retrospective benefits from a Blu-ray buff job, with much of the archival footage looking surprisingly sharp. The first 20 minutes interweave concert clips with interview sound bites featuring the Moodys—Justin Hayward (guitar/vocals), John Lodge (bass/vocals), Graeme Edge (drums), and Mike Pinder (whose Mellotron was responsible for the band's signature orchestral sound), although Ray Thomas (flute) is absent. Edge recalls these days of psychedelia passed: “We were just getting wrecked, but it felt like our minds were expanding.” Head trips aside, the Moodys produced a number of iconic songs from the period, several of which are performed here during the 9-song hour-shy set following the long-ish introduction, including “Tuesday Afternoon,” “Question,” “Nights in White Satin,” and “Legend of a Mind,” with a handful of lesser anthologized cuts, such as “Never Comes the Day,” “Tortoise and the Hare,” and “Melancholy Man.” The whole shebang ends with a bit of artsy editing, as “Ride My See Saw” is played to footage of the band intercut from gigs over several decades. Presented in DTS-HD 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, and LPCM stereo, this time capsule portrait of the popular group at its peak is recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)