Rating: 
Summary: NOT THE REAL DEAL !
Review:
THESE TAPES SHOW VERY GOOD RAVI SHANKAR, SOME JANIS AND SOME
MOMMAS AND PAPAS AND A FEW OTHER ARTISTS. ALL THE REST IS JIMI
HENDRIX WITH A LOT OF REPEATED SHOTS AND A BUNCH OF BORING DRAWN
OUT INTERVIEWS. I THOUGHT IT WOULD NEVER BE OVER. SOMEONE MUST
HAVE MADE A REAL MONTEREY POP AND THIS IS A CHEAP KNOCKOFF.DON'T
WASTE YOUR MONEY. OTHERWISE HAVE A NICE DAY OR WHATEVER.
GENE ADDINGTON
Rating: 
Summary: Incomplete but revealing
Review: Other reviewers with much more knowledge of the artists and the period have said it all with regard to this collection. However, I still feel compelled to make a few observations after having viewed all three disks several times:
1. I would really like to be able to see The Association's entire set from Monterey; that all that exists of it is "Along Comes Mary" is an absolute shame.
2. I've read various reviews of Big Brother & The Holding Company and Quicksilver Messenger Service that indicated those groups (Janis Joplin excepted) were collections of musical idiots--well, the outtakes disk of "Monterey Pop" is ample proof that only in psychedelic San Francisco could those groups ever have flourished. (The Airplane wasn't much better.)
3. Certainly Jimi Hendrix was a great guitar player, but it's too bad someone couldn't have convinced him to play Monterey in some state approximating straight and sober.
4. The Who were obviously still developing as a live act. It's almost painful to watch their halting performance of "A Quick One" at Monterey after watching their tour-de-force performance of the same tune (or tunes) on "The Rolling Stones Rock 'n' Roll Circus" just a year later. It's no real wonder they didn't break out in America until after Woodstock in 1969.
5. I think the best guitarist performing at Monterey was Mike Bloomfield, based simply on The Electric Flag's performance of "Wine." He was probably just as stoned as Hendrix (as evidenced by his "really groovy" speech to the crowd), but his musicality still managed to come to the fore.
6. David Crosby--what a burned-out wanker, even then.
7. It's too bad Laura Nyro got such bad reviews from Monterey. I agree that her act didn't really fit into the format of the festival, but she was a great singer and an even better songwriter--and she was only twenty-bloody-years old at the time!
8. I'm not a great Otis Redding fan, but it's fun to watch him being backed up by the MGs. What a tight unit they were!
Rating:
Summary: Disc Two! Disc Two!! Disc Two!!!
Review: To call Jimi's performance here incredible goes beyond the pale
of understatement. What makes this DVD really worth the price of
purchase for me is the Otis Redding footage.
After a full weekend of psychedelics,ear-splitting guitarwork and
some well choreographed onstage mayhem by The Who & Jimi Hendrix,
the best was saved for last. The final act of the festival, Otis
backed by Booker T. & The MG's and The Mar-Keys horn section just
tore the place up. After the seemingly impossible to follow act
that was Hendrix, all Otis had to do was open his mouth and the
crowd was his. Never have I seen so much charisma and magnetism
come out of one man. I've watched the "Shake - Otis At Monterey"
segment of this DVD 20 times if I have watched it once and it never fails to amaze me.
On top of this you have of course the Hendrix footage as well as
some really great un-released footage of Big Brother&The Holding
Co.(W/Janis) and The Butterfield Blues Band in what arguably can
be called their best line up with Bloomfield & Elvin Bishop just plain getting down, blue and funky. Recommended!
Rating:
Summary: "Summer of Love" revisited
Review: This box set released by the Criterion Collection is one of the most impressive sets they've released to date. It contains the original "Monterey Pop" film plus three others "Jimi Plays at Monterey" "Shake! Otis at Monterey" and "Outtake Performances"
Disc one has the first film "Monterey Pop" which portrays the festival from construction to the festival's end.
It contains performances of (in sequence): "Combination of the Two" by Big Brother and the Holding Company, "San Francisco" by Scott McKenzie, "Creeque Alley" & "California Dreamin'" by the Mamas and the Papas, "Rollin' and Tumblin'" by Canned Heat, "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" By Simon and Garfunkel, "Bajabula Bonke (Healing Song)" by Hugh Masekela, "High Flyin' Bird" and "Today" by Jefferson Airplane, "Ball and Chain" by Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Paint it Black" by The Animals, "My Generation" by The Who, "Section 43" by Country Joe and the Fish, "Shake" and "I've Been Loving you too Long" by Otis Redding, "Wild Thing" by Jimi Hendrix, "Got a Feelin'" by the Mamas and the Papas, and "Raga Bhimpalasi" by Ravi Shankar.
Disc two contains the films, "Jimi Plays at Monterey" and "Shake! Otis at Monterey"
The Jimi Hendrix film contains performances of: "Can You See Me?", "Purple Haze", Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", Monterey", "Killing Floor", Foxy Lady", "Like a Rolling Stone", "Rock Me Baby", "Hey Joe", "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Wild Thing". At the end of the performance he sets his guitar on fire and smashes it.
The Otis Redding film contains performances of: "Shake", "Respect", "I've Been Loving You Too Long", "(I Can't Get No) Staisfaction", and "Try a Little Tenderness"
Disc 3 contains the "Outtake Performances" These are the artists and the songs played (In order): "Along Comes Mary" by The Association, "Homeward Bound" and "Sounds of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel, "Not-So-Sweet Martha Lorraine" by Country Joe and the Fish, "(I Heard Her Say) Wake Me, Shake Me" by Al Kooper, "Driftin' Blues" by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, "All I Ever Wanted to Do (Was Love You)" by Quicksilver Messenger Service, "Drinkin' Wine" by The Electric Flag, "Chimes of Freedom", "He Was a Friend of Mine", and "Hey Joe" by The Byrds, "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Poverty Train" by Laura Nyro, "Somebody to Love" by Jefferson Airplane, "Flute Thing" by The Blues Project, "Combination of the Two" by Big Brother and the Holding Company, "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield, "Substitute", Summertime Blues", and "A Quick One While He's Away" by The Who, "Straight Shooter", "Somebody Groovy", "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)", "I Call Your Name", "Monday, Monday", and "Dancing in the Street" by The Mamas and the Papas. Finally there is a performance by Tiny Tim of "King for a Day", "Laugh, Clown, Laugh", "May God Be With Our Boys Tonight", and "My What a Funny Little World This Is".
The first two discs also have special features.
Disc one has a theatrical trailer and radio ads, video interviews with D.A. Pennebaker and Lou Adler, audio interviews with John Phillips, Derek Taylor and others. There is also a facsimile of the scrapbook and audio commentary by Lou Adler and D.A. Pennebaker.
Disc two has the following:
For the Jimi Hendrix film there is audio commentary by Charles Shar Murray, a trailer and a video interview with Pete Townshend
The Otis film has an interview with Otis Redding's manager, Phil Walden and two audio commentarties both by Peter Guralnick.
There are none on Disc three.
There is also over 60 pages of essays, a list of performers and a lot of other stuff.
This is a must buy for people interested in the festival!
Rating:
Summary: Flower Power
Review: I had seen the original film long ago but had forgotten most of it except Jimi burning his guitar. Some thirty years later,it looks terrific. The outtakes CD was the primary reason for my purchase,and it is fascinating to see how good and bad some of the bands were. First,the good: Country Joe and the Fish playing "Not-so-sweet Martha Lorraine" is wonderfully unusual.Second, Big Brother and the Holding Company tearing into "Combination of the Two".Both Paul Butterfield's and Mike Bloomfield's bands play some smoking blues. Now,the bad: Blues Project's song was disjointed noise; Grace Slick sings well,but the other vocals in Jefferson Airplane's set were less than expected;the Who's performance of "A Quick One While He's Away" is inferior to the version on "Rock & Roll Circus",although to be fair the performance on "Circus" came over a year later;the Byrds (one of my favorites) were weak,especially the hyperactive David Crosby. Overall,the three discs will transport you to a gentler time of good vibes.
Rating:
Summary: Jimi and Otis
Review: The greatest part of this package is the disc with the performances of Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding. Happily, for me, these two musicians who I worship, were chosen for this disc of extended performances.
The segment featuring Jimi Hendrix unfortunately begins with a somewhat long and tedious intro featuring a mad painter and then some "blah, blah" from John Phillips before finally getting to what matters. Jimi is over the top right from the start and it's easy to see the crowd is awed. In some of the shots of the crowd it's also easy to see that some of them are tripping hard. Jimi Hendrix was a combination of massive talent and great showmanship. In his later years, when he tried to get away from that upfront, knock 'em dead style his shows did suffer.
Like Jimi, Otis Redding bounded onstage already cranked up to eleven. How could even an audience of hippies not respond to him? Also, like Jimi, he was a consumate performer and, as Phil Walden says in the bonus feature, Otis gave his audience everything he had. Frankly, more than even Jimi, when I watched Otis I got that tinglinng feeling I always get from a truly great musical performance.
Being a bass player, one of the things I enjoyed about the Otis Redding segment was that Duck Dunn was right behind him. At one point you even get a close up of him playing. Also, Al Jackson is always in the picture and you get a good feel for the way he and Duck worked together. They were tight. The worst part of the disc was that during Try A Little Tenderness they did this montage of tired festival goers instead of keeping the camera on Otis.
In Jimi's part almost all you get is Jimi although Mitch Mitchell is often in the background and his enthusiasm makes him look like a slightly more in control Keith Moon. I don't mind not seeing Noel Redding much. Although he plays bass, he was originally a guitarist and only picked up the bass to get the Hendrix gig. His playing was never especially inspiring unlike other guitarists turned bassists like Paul McCartney.
Contrary to what some guitar players might tell you, bassists are not frustrated guitar players.
The rest of the package is OK. I wish the above disc could be available seperately so that I could save some money and get only the part that really matters. Two supreme talents who left us all to soon, Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding.
Rating: 
Summary: True Social Time Capsule
Review: If, through some miracle, I was given a choice of being able to attend Monterey or Woodstock, Monterey would win hands down. Musically, Monterey had so much more variety to offer without any of the overt "coolness" and the pretentious attitude the performers and announcers had at Woodstock. Where Woodstock musically purposely pushed the counter-culture, Monterey just "let it all hang out," (as was the term in '67). Pop artists freely and without care mingled with the new underground. Where else could you find Peter Tork of the Monkees introduce the Buffalo Springfield? Monterey was innocent - the musicians, the announcers, and the patrons - and there was no "smile for the camera" smugness that Woodstock seemed to convey.
Plenty of fresh new music abounded for an audience that responded with child-like glee (except for the wide-eyed young girl who witnessed Jimi Hendrix for the first time! Don't you just love her expression?).
As a previous reviewer wrote (and I will expand on), there were no tye-dyed shirts or guys with hair down to the middle of their backs in the audience. That style was 1969 and into the 1970's. In fact, most guys wore their hair not much longer than the Beatles did in 1964 - collar length with the ears showing. And, for those who wore glasses, the horn-rimmed style was still the most common and not the John Lennon type from the Sgt. Pepper album. Still a few years to go before that caught on.
Monterey is truly a time capsule of 1967. This magnificent DVD box set has more social history of the times than any musical documentary I have seen. Do you want to know the way it really was in the Summer of Love? Watch the Monterey Pop Festival box set.
Because, that IS the way it really was.
Rating:
Summary: BLOOMFIELD ON DVD!!!!!!
Review: It is an interesting fact that Michael Bloomfield was the best guitar player to perform at the Monterey Pop Festival. Sure, Jimi Hendrix performed with much talent, but he's a lousy song-writer, and William Hung is a better singer.As for Bloomfield, I put out the dough for this three DVD set because it contained one live cut of Bloomfield and Electric Flag doing "Wine." Buddy Miles is on the cans, and he's wearing a suit! And I got to tell ya, Nick Gravenites--that's exactly how we people of Chicago's Westside look. Really! As far as I have been able to confirm, this is the only video clip of Michael Bloomfield in existence. How'd that happen? G.G. Allin has tons of videos out in the marketplace. (Ha! Ha! I just thought that neither G.G. nor Bloomfield are in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, but Arrowsmith is. And Tiny Tim might be.) Anyway, the clip does capture an all-too-short solo that still gives the first-time listener something spectacular. If you don't like this clip of "Wine," then you don't like Bloomfield. But for those who saw the clip, who would declare that it was not at least very pleasant? There's a lot of other cool stuff on these three DVDs. For example, fans of Janis Joplin will see a beautiful young lady. However, be forewarned that Big Brother and the Holding Company is blatantly musically inept. That band is terrible. It's worse than G.G. Allin and the Texas Nazis. Fans of Tiny Tim will savor four cuts! Yeah! Four cuts of Tiny Tim playing the ukulele! Don't get me wrong, I mean I am glad that Tiny Tim has found a new career as vocalist for The Darkness. You got to see the clothes The Who is wearing! I mean, it's awful! So, yeah, this is good stuff. If only Hendrix and Bloomfield jammed together! Man!
Rating:
Summary: The ultimate edition of the greatest concert film ever made
Review: Mere words cannot describe the transcendental viewing experience that is "Monterey Pop", but I'll do my best to try here. Imagine a film of many of the best rock and pop acts of the 1960s performing at or near their peak smack in the middle of 1967's fabled Summer Of Love. Now imagine this concert expertly and emotionally filmed by master documentarian DA Pennebaker, and beautifully remastered 35 years later with crystal-clear sound and video. Now imagine every available surviving outtake from the original '68 film--including the complete Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding performances (both briefly issued on VHS in the 80s), plus two more hours featuring many acts not featured in the original film--added to the set, most of which is as good or even better than what made the final cut. "Monterey Pop" should be required viewing--far more than "Woodstock", that's for sure--for anyone interested in what the 60s was really all about. It is more than just an incredible rock festival, the first and still the best of its kind. It is a historical document of the hippie era at its euphoric peak. DA Pennebaker truly earned his credentials here as his camera focuses with incredible grace and sensitivity on each face, be it from audience member or performer. There is one shot during Ravi Shankar's performance where his camera walks down a lengthy aisle and the quasi-religious looks and gypsy-like fashions on the dozens of people he meets along the way is simply breathtaking. That singular mood--which captures a long-lost communal paradise of gentle smiles and laughter, incredibly colorful clothing and painted faces, mind-blowing psychedelic light shows, gods-eye weaves, beads, flowers and of course Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Otis Redding, Country Joe & The Fish, Simon And Garfunkel and many more giving performances more akin to spiritual visions than entertainment--will hypnotize and delight the viewer from beginning to end, and even though there are four hours of entertainment here you will be left wanting more (and usually wishing for a time machine).
With the audience almost as dazzling a sight as the performers, and the light show competing with and complementing the music for one's attention, the film feels like one singular artistic statement which came together like magic, fuelled by the acid-soaked climate of the time. Much interesting historical info is given in the booklet and audio commentaries, although the
real highlight of this re-release are the two extra DVDs featuring all the available outtake footage. Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding, of course, gave two of the greatest performances of all time at Monterey; nothing need be said of Hendrix's now-iconic US breakthrough, which upped the ante on The Who's stunning set. Much more of The Who's set makes the outtakes disc as well, along with many artists unfortunately cut out of the original film such as The Byrds, Laura Nyro, The Electric Flag, The Blues Project and Buffalo Springfield. The Blues Project give a particularly fine, unexpected performance featuring an inspired flute solo. Other highlights include Big Brother doing "Combination Of The Two" (which crackles with excitement), Simon And Garfunkel dishing out a mesmerizing "Sound Of Silence", Country Joe & The Fish rocking on "Martha Lorraine" (with more classic audience shots), Jefferson Airplane storming their way through "Somebody To Love" (which should have made the official film over "High Flying Bird"), Laura Nyro's dramatic rendition of "Poverty Train", and Crosby and Stills together on stage for the first time while the Springfield do "For What It's Worth". Films like this need to be preserved and cherished as time capsules of a bygone era that becomes more and more distorted through hazy recollection and warped media images over the years (for starters, not a *single* person in "Monterey Pop" can be seen wearing a tie-dye shirt!). It is my favorite concert film and one of the most enjoyable and even spiritual films I have ever seen, which at times brings a tear to the eye. If you've already seen the original film, the DVD will be "like Easter and Christmas and New Years and your birthday all in one"; if you haven't, and particularly if you are of today's under-21 generation for who the 60s are a distant grandparents' memory, "Monterey Pop" may change your life.
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