Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight

Thirty years after the famous Isle of Wight Festival took place, and thanks to the Jimi Hendrix estate, Murray Lerner has managed to screen virtually the whole set that Hendrix played at the Festival, and the audiovisual quality can be described as spectacular.Blue Wild Angel is not just a unique document of the era, but also a technically fantastic portrait of the best rock guitarist of the 20th century, at the peak of his talent at this festival that attracted an audience almost twice the size of the one at Woodstock. The film starts with a series of interviews with those involved, among them the organisers of the festival and the Hendrix rhythm section that evening: bassist Billy Cox and the unique, dedicated Mitch Mitchell on drums, who states that this may be the best Hendrix trio ever. The performance, that started at three in the morning and was recorded with a large number of cameras, starts with a passionate rendition of God Save The Queen, after which Hendrix plays an exciting and balanced set with wellknown numbers (All Along the Watch Tower, Foxy Lady, Purple Haze) and less wellknown ones. Maybe most special of all is that Hendrix here, 18 days before his death, shows that he was not only a wild, psychedelic guitar acrobat broken loose, but from time to time also a balanced, disciplined session musician who understood his craft.