Friday 16 August 2013

THE DUTCH WOODSTOCK REVIEW

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DVD/CD REVIEW: The Dutch Woodstock (Gonzo Multimedia 2013) 

It’s amazing the treasures that continue to surface from Rocks glory days! I didn’t see this one coming, partially because I don’t think many of us had ever heard of the Dutch Woodstock, otherwise known as The Holland Pop Festival. This event took place in August of 1970 and was attended by about 100,000 revelers and if you’ve seen the original Woodstock movie you will have some idea of what to expect here. Perhaps not as technically well shot as its namesake, this film does capture many of the same moments; the music, the drugs, the swimming, the nudity, the carefree lifestyle and more. The three-day festival had a great lineup of primarily UK and US bands including Santana, Pink Floyd, Country Joe, It’s A Beautiful Day, Canned Heat and more. In particular there are some unique live performances captured of The Flock, T-Rex, Soft Machine and Family. Given the film vintage it’s been pretty well preserved and the images are very strong with lots of close-ups of the band members. In fact there are very few long shots of the bands playing; it seems all the cameras were on stage. We do see lots of long shots of the crowd‘s antics but few of the musicians. The audio is nice and clean, certainly representative of the era although it does have some crowd noise peculiarities, almost as if they added in some sound effects after the fact. It’s not a big deal and in the end this is quite an amazing document. Both the DVD and the 2-disc audio CD display some great visuals and some amazing music of the late psychedelic and early progressive rock era.

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FROM GONZO
The Dutch Woodstock 1970
2CD1DVD - £11.99


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