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By the summer of 1970, the innocent illusion of peace, love, and rock and roll was disappearing faster than a gram of coke at a Crosby, Stills & Nash rehearsal. Woodstock had already shown the world that turning rebellion into money was just a marketing campaign; Altamont had proved how quickly a summer of love could degenerate into a violent winter. Still, an estimated 600,000 people showed up for the Isle of Wight Festival, a five-day extravaganza on an island off the south coast of England featuring Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Miles Davis, and the Doors. Jim Morrison was out on bail from his famed obscenity bust. Hendrix would be dead three weeks later. And though the festival is often overlooked by rock historians (The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll doesn't even mention it in a chapter on such events), it was actually estimated to be larger than Woodstock.

The American filmmaker Murray Lerner was there. And the footage he came away with offers fascinating glimpses of a crumbling counterculture. The musical performances, including a particularly ferocious one by the Who, are secondary to the film's main storyline, which is about how the forces of greed and anarchy defeat the ideals of a generation. Backstage, the camera zooms in on a pile of crumpled pound notes the festival's promoters have to count and deliver to an unnamed band before they'll agree to go on. Another act threaten to cancel at the last minute because their name isn't large enough in an ad. Meanwhile, an unruly mob bang angrily on the metal fence surrounding the concert grounds, demanding free admission and ultimately disrupting Kris Kristofferson's set. By the end, the festival's once-beaming, longhaired MC admits that he just feels older. And as Lerner's camera pulls back to survey the ravaged site, you can't help sensing that the entire business of rock and roll has just graduated into the cynical '70s. At the Coolidge Corner.