Message to Love

Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival 1970
Paul Rodgers of the band Free singing "All Right Now" in front of the crowd
Directed by	Murray Lerner
Produced by	Murray Lerner
Written by	Murray Lerner
Edited by	Greg Sheldon (performance sequences) Stanley Warnow (as Stan Warnow) Einar Westerlund
Distributed by	Castle Music Pictures Strand Releasing
Release date	February 21, 1997 (1997-02-21) (U.S.)
Running time	127 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Soundtrack
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic

Message to Love (directed and produced by Murray Lerner) is a feature documentary film of the Isle of Wight Festival 1970. The film unsparingly, often comically depicts the myriad problems associated with the famously chaotic festival—the main program of which was held on August 26–30, 1970—including gate-crashing, numerous crowd incursions onto the stage, Kris Kristofferson being booed offstage, and head promoter Rikki Farr's rants against the audience, which only intensified as the situation deteriorated: "We put this festival on, you bastards, with a lot of love! We worked for one year for you pigs! And you wanna break our walls down and you wanna destroy it? Well you go to hell!" This and two other brief dialogue extracts from the film were later sampled in the Oasis track "Fuckin' in the Bushes", from the album Standing on the Shoulder of Giants.

In addition, several near-riots occurred over the price of tickets, as well as during several of the performances that took place over the weekend, especially Jimi Hendrix's last billed performance in England.

A counterpoint, not included in the film, is provided by Chief Constable, Hampshire Constabulary, Sir Douglas Osmond, who emphasised the peaceful nature of the event in his evidence given to the Stevenson Report, 1971, (submitted to parliament as evidence in favour of future Isle of Festivals) "...By the end of the festival the press representatives became almost desperate for material and they seemed a little disappointed that the patrons had been so well behaved."

Due to financial difficulties, Message to Love wasn't released until 1997, 27 years after the event, after premiering at a San Jose film festival in 1995. A CD of the soundtrack was also issued by Castle Communications/Sony Legacy in 1997.

In recent years, Lerner's copious 16mm concert footage has been repurposed to create a wealth of complete-performance DVD releases by Hendrix (Blue Wild Angel), Miles Davis (Miles Electric - A Different Kind of Blue), The Who (Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970), Jethro Tull (Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970), Emerson, Lake & Palmer (The Birth Of A Band: Isle of Wight 1970), The Moody Blues (Threshold of a Dream: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970), Leonard Cohen (Leonard Cohen Live at The Isle of Wight 1970), Free (Free Forever DVD), and Taste (What's Going On Live At The Isle of Wight 1970).