The Moody Blues

Some concert films are understandably lacklustre, while others transcend mere set lists and capture a band at their creative best. The latter took place in 1970 in front of half-a-million fans at the Isle of Wight Festival. The Moody Blues had just released their landmark album, A Question of Balance, and their impassioned performances, delivered with panache and professionalism, are utterly breathtaking. Ray Thomas's fluttering flute on "Legend of a Mind" stands out, as does Graeme Edge's frenzied tom-and-cymbal assaults on "Tortoise and the Hare." The band's youthful honesty is evident in Justin Hayward's emotional liberation, "Never Comes the Day," and Mike Pindar's sincere delivery of "Melancholy Man." Woven together with archival band footage, festival happenings and new interviews with the group, this DVD helps reassemble the urgency of the era and the atmosphere of this last bastion of '60s Flower Power. This extraordinary DVD is an absolute must-own for all fans of orchestral prog.