Sound Quality is not good over all, but some songs do sound nice.
KR

In 1970 The Moody Blues were at their creative and commercial peak. After reinventing themselves from their R&B roots to a much more sophisticated sound, between 1967 and 1970 they released five albums, four of which hit the Top 5 in the UK with two of them going to No.1. They enjoyed similar success in the USA where four of the albums hit the Top 20 and the other was just outside. At the end of August 1970, shortly after the release of their album "A Question Of Balance", The Moody Blues took to the stage of the Isle Of Wight Festival in front of an audience estimated at over half a million. This CD makes that performance available for the first time.

If you like your classic Moodies in the raw, and are a big fan of the Caught Live + 5 sound, you will love this. If you want the studio sound, best to stick with your Core 7 Cds. Better yet to consider this CD as a unique stand alone piece of art and sonic history, since it is not at all a copy of CL+5.(One is enough).
Its speaks to the strength of the songs themselves and the ability of the Moodies to work out different presentations of the same songs so that they work both in the living room with your headphones as well as to an outdoor venue with 600,000 people, of course not without some rearrangements. Unlike Justin Hayward, I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. As a result of not being able to include the studio crossovers and fadeouts, the Moodies were "forced" to write at least a couple minutes of original never before released intros and endings to songs like MS and Tortise, and for that alone I think its worth getting this CD. If you ever wanted to dance to Minstrels Song but were afraid to try, you can do so easily to this boogie-friendly version.
Regarding the sound, Gypsy and Tuesday Afternoon are delightfully grungy, with some growling guitar down in the TA mix. Generally, it is a kind of boomy and bass heavy sound on the rock passages, and all the guitar parts are up in the mix, and Justin even hits a few good distorted notes in there somewhere. On the other side, there are some really great pin-drop passages, where the sound is really clean and intimate. Quite an achievement I think to effectively present some really crushing hard rock with some quiet songs in that setting.
Pinder fans will like the vocal mixes, he is very prominent, and unlike +5, John's falsetto is not, so the four part harmonies have that nice deep men's chorus roar ala on I'm Just A Singer, and there is nothing like the See Saw vocal imbalance on +5. In fact the harmonies are close considering the conditions, and on songs like Sunset, Melancholy Man, Are You Sitting, and some other spots the lead vocals sound much closer miked and recorded than some +5 songs. The drumming from Graeme Edge, which in the studio was often restrained and low in the mix, is powerful, raw, upfront, and really gave the live songs a consistent backbone here, even when the vocals and mellotron were out and in at times. He really comes up with some great fills live to replace all the overdubbed piano and mellotron parts that they couldn't take with them to the stage.
I've always preferred the live version of The Dream/Have You Heard to the studio, and its really a highlight here. You really get a sense of how big the mellotron sound was on this more than on the +5 HYH, especially on the entended transition from Are You Sitting to the Dream,
and the big tron swoops going into the Voyage. On this version, there is a heart-beat like rhthym in the Voyage, some audience reaction, some mellotron, and it all makes for some great tension and anticipation.
It is an uneven recording and presentation, and even comparing it with Caught Live is an apple/orange thing; For example, on the +5 Sunset the mellotron swells and growls like a living beast, and here it for some reason it is flatter and more subdued, yet the accompanying vocal is stronger and closer than on +5. Anyway, it is great to have two live Moody Blues discs from their classic period to compare; I say get them both and edit the best parts from each in the studio in your mind.

1. Gypsy 3:16
2. Sunset 3:59
3. Tuesday Afternoon 4:18
4. Minstrel Song 4:25
5. Never Comes the Day 4:45
6. Tortoise and the Hare 3:29
7. Question 5:44
8. Melancholy Man 5:32
9. Are You Sitting Comfortably 3:45
10. The Dream 1:41
11. Have You Heard (Pts 1 and 2) 7:56
12. Nights in White Satin 5:00
13. Legend of a Mind 6:37
14. Ride my See Saw 3:36