Far Out!

To complete another bizarre double bill ultra-modern hi-tech espionage was followed by far out groovy retro flashback, as channel Five delivered the full three and a half hours of documentary footage from Michael Wadleigh and Martin Scorsese's 1969 direction. As a document of the time and mood it is a wonderul piece of movie-making, and if you have a hippy bone in your body you can't help but be moved by the intent and power of the music and the movement - leaving you terribly sad that things aren't like that anymore. The film doesn't glamorise things (the images of debris in the aftermath are shocking) but presents all sides of things, the joy, the trips, the dirt, the hunger, the angry farmers, but most of all the musicians! Jimi of course and the seminal Star Spangled Banner, but so many amazing performances, Joe Cocker and his mental air guitar were the highlight for me. Groovy! Kx