NOTHING IS EASY: LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 1970

I saw this concert film yesterday on TV being broadcasted by a not commercial TV station in my city. I`m not a fan of Jethro Tull but this concert is very good. The video also has some commentaries done by Ian Anderson years later about the start of the band and the general atmosphere of the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival which turned a bit violent, as I also saw it in the film of the same Festival called "Message of Love" or something like that (which I also saw on TV years ago). The Hippy Dream was almost over, as Anderson also comments, with the audience`s demands for free musical festivals. As other documentaries show, 1970 was a year on which violence and riots were increasing at rock concerts and festivals. Also the so-called "Establishment" became more violent against all these riots. The Hippy Dream was also over because the ideals of "Peace and Love" were almost over with the promoters of these Festivals taking these concerts more as bussiness than as happy gatherings of young people to listen to music and use drugs. The seventies turned violent against these ideals, and many musicians had to stop writing political songs to avoid that violence.

The line-up of Jethro Tull for this concert was very good, and it shows that Ian Anderson alone wasn`t Jethro Tull. The pasing of time turned this band to be Anderson and his employees, but by 1970 it still was a real band, in my opinion. Anderson is a very smart person who knew how to create the character of the manic flute player-singer-guitarist. He appears dancing, playing with passion, doing funny faces and sounds, and interacting with the audience and the band in a funny way. He also was smart because he knew how to sell this image and promote it to turn Jethro Tull as a very successful band. Every member of this line-up is shown playing with feeling and energy with Anderson who also knew very well how to motivate the musicians in the band. Drummer Clive Bunker also plays a very good drums solo in "Dhama for One" and also shows in every song how good he was as a drummer. This was a very good band which also recorded the very good "Benefit" album in 1970.

I think that there are several examples of good Prog Rock music in the performances of the songs despite the opinion that says that Jethro Tull wasn`t a Prog band then. The best example of this is the song called "To Cry You a Song" from "Benefit" (only shown as background music under the final credits), which in my opinion has some influences of some classical musicinas like J.S. Bach. It is a great song played in a heavy version.

In the video Ian Anderson himself recognizes his lack of talent for playing the guitar, so he says that he found the flute to play it in a Rock band to be at the same time "the worst and the best flute player in Rock" because there were not very much flute players in Rock bands then! Years later he even became a better flute player, guitarist and composer, in my opinion. With similarities to Jon Anderson of YES, Ian Anderson was very smart to have in his band very good musicians who could play in each one in their instruments the ideas of the leader and of the main composer of the band.

Being filmed at an open air Rock Festival, the images are good, but the sound is not as good as in other concert videos. But this DVD is very good for the Fans and not Fans of this very good band.