Both Sides Now: Joni Mitchell Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (released in 2018 via Eagle Rock Entertainment) captures the singer performing many of her most celebrated early numbers before a huge audience—as many as 600,000 people. The Blu-ray’s title, borrowed from one of Mitchell’s best-known songs, is fitting, because the movie also shows both sides of the conflict that unfolded at the festival. On one side are the performers and promoters who are trying to maintain the peace and keep the event on track; on the other are the radicals who insist that the musicians either play for free or pack up and go home.
The film—by the late Murray Lerner, who made several other movies about this festival and also one about Bob Dylan’s early performances at Newport—suggests that it was August 1969’s peaceful Woodstock, not the violent Altamont festival later that year, that was a bit of a fluke. Unlike Altamont, the 1970 Isle of Wight event was not the scene of any deaths; but it did witness bad acid trips, violence and more than a few ugly confrontations with protesters.
Related: Behind Joni’s “Woodstock” anthem
During the first four songs in her solo set, the vulnerable-looking Mitchell appears shaken and angry.
Joni Mitchell performing “Both Sides Now” at the Isle of Wight in 1970
By the time the then-26-year-old Mitchell takes the stage on August 29, the fourth of the festival’s five days, the situation has spiraled out of control. Audience members are smashing down fences, repeatedly interrupting the singer, and shouting obscenities at her. One man gets on stage, grabs a mic, and starts ranting about how the concert should be free before he can be dragged away.
During the first four songs in her solo set, the vulnerable-looking Mitchell appears shaken and angry; but then she stops, admonishes the crowd, and asks for some respect. She gets it. The audience begins listening attentively, and by the time they call her back for an encore, she is smiling broadly, having won over her listeners.
The film cuts back and forth between Mitchell’s performance and a 2003 interview in which she recalls the event and gives her side of the story. She remembers wanting to flee the stage but explains how she managed to stand her ground and triumph.
If you’re interested in ’60s counterculture and the reasons for its demise, you’ll find this movie illuminating. But even if you’re not, you’ll likely enjoy Mitchell’s affecting 11-song performance. Accompanying herself on piano, guitar and harpsichord, she offers consistently strong versions of such classics as “Chelsea Morning,” “The Gallery” and “Both Sides Now” from 1969’s Clouds; “Woodstock,” “Big Yellow Taxi” and the particularly appropriate “For Free” from the then recently released Ladies of the Canyon; and “My Old Man,” “California,” and “A Case of You” from Blue, which would not come out until the summer after the Isle of Wight Festival.
Related: Our Album Rewind of Ladies of the Canyon
A restoration team has done impressive work with the half-century-old footage in Both Sides Now; the DTS-HD Master sound and widescreen video are terrific. And once you’ve seen the whole film, you can use an onscreen menu to skip the interview segments and play just the music, which leaves no doubt about the size of Mitchell’s talent.
Watch Mitchell perform “Big Yellow Taxi” at the Isle of Wight festival
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Jump into a conversationNo harpsichord….. a Dulcimer ……..