"This is the love crowd, right? We all love each other, don't we?"
There's an angle Pennebaker uses from behind Redding during his song Respect that produces such feeling - the spotlight haloed around his head like an aura, his breath visible in the surrounding darkness, and the flares of light rain looking as incandescent as his energy level. Backed by Booker T. & the M. G.'s, Redding made the most of the moment during a star-studded festival in June, 1967 that also saw breakout performances from Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. The film is as short and sweet as Redding's set, just five songs (and unfortunately before he had penned (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay), and of course as short as his life, tragically ended in a plane crash just six months later on a winter night in Madison, Wisconsin. I loved the footage of the crowd taken from other points of the festival during the final song, Try a Little Tenderness; despite putting this together two decades later, Pennebaker captures both the artist and spirit of the festival here.
