Eagle Records
2008
Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970
About This Album
Live recordings by the original Moody Blues are surprisingly scarce -- considering the amount of touring that they did do from 1968 through 1973, especially of the United States, and the way they were selling records after 1968, amazingly little in the way of actual concert recordings were apparently done, and even less have turned up across the years; one live album from Royal Albert Hall in 1969 (and that was released almost begrudgingly, in 1978, to pave the way for the band's reuniting), and that's been it. That is, until the release of this CD of just over an hour in length, containing the band's performance from the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, in front of an audience many hundreds of thousands strong (no one knows for sure, as the gate-crashers took the place over). And its shortcomings may explain why there haven't been more extensive efforts at documenting the group's live sound from this period. Oh, there are some very good moments -- many, in fact -- and they do well on numbers such as "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Nights in White Satin," from their classic repertory -- and then-new songs such as "Gypsy," "Tortoise and the Hare," and "Minstrel's Song" come off well; and even "Melancholy Man," which this reviewer has always regarded as a weak number from A Question of Balance, works better here with more emotional immediacy and connection.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10)

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