Monterey Pop

There was a time in 1969 when a friend and I went to see Monterey Pop every Friday night at the Kips Bay Cinema in NYC just to hear Janis sing Ball and Chain and Otis sing I've been Lovin You Too Long. Then we'd go to dinner and maybe another movie, but it set up our entire weekend.

Now, I think about how many of the performers were gone too soon, too young -- Janis, Jimi, Otis, Mama Cass... How amazing to have them all there in this one glorious celebration of music and the innocence (yes) of the 60's.

Maybe it's not the best "film-making" but it's a treasure to be appreciated as the years go by. Would love to see a DVD release with any additional available footage. Enjoy and remember, (or discover)

This is a classic documentary of 60s rock, captured live before all the hype and hoopla of hippiedom sank most of these acts (and many others). The Monterey Pop Festival kicked off the Summer of Love and remains the prime event of that epoch. The film should be seen by anyone who claims a passing interest in "Woodstock" or "the 60s." I give it 10 stars.

I'm over 2020 and want to escape - so Monterey Pop was my choice tonight. No regrets. It acted as the perfect form of escapism and time machine back to the 1960s. You almost start to feel a bit high just watching. It captures the concert experience perfectly and this pivotal moment in time.

I would've happily enjoyed a longer film, with full sets. As it was, it seemed like a mini taster of the event, that just meandered around. Featured a bit too much sitar at the end.

My highlights were Mamas and Papas, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel.

And damn, 60s women were something else. So beautiful. In fact, all the people here seemed beautiful, happy and free-spirited. Just what my soul needed after a long day.

A most excellent time capsule of a period. No questions. If you want to see what the sixties were like...Then watch. This really does put in a time capsule more of the generation than anything I've seen. You can feel the shift happening via the music. I vote this is infinitely more important than Woodstock because the movement was already in full swing at that point. Witness the birth of so much of what we still are listening to today. This is the real unadulterated thing. Kudos to the "Criterion Collection"! If only Otis Redding would have lived longer?There is no telling the musical legacy he was going to leave? Based on the incendiary performance here it would have been formidable. This is a must see for anyone interested in the procession of rock through all the permutations of soul and blues. Not to be missed.

This has to be one of the greatest concert documentaries ever made. You get to see some of the greatest early performances by some of rock's greatest legends (Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Janis Joplin) as well as the performance of one band on their last legs, the Mamas and the Papas. The festival also could be seen as a turning point in popular music due to the fact that after the festiveal the more singles oriented acts were being pushed aside in favor of the more progressive album oriented artists.

Also, if you need more convincing of how much of a pivotal event this was, check out the outtakes video. It contains many of the performances that didn't make it to the film, including Buffalo Springfield without Neil Young who had quit the band a month before their scheduled appearance. Replacing him for this performance was David Crosby, who performed earlier with the Byrds but joined his friend Stephen Stills and the rest of the Springfield for the show (less than a year later Crosby and Stills would team up with Graham Nash and the rest is history). Also check out Laura Nyro. Legend has it that she was booed off the stage. However, she gets a nice applause for her renditions of her classics "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Poverty Train".