The Isle of Wight Festival is obviously home turf. It was celebrating its 50th year this year. However not to be churlish there haven't been 50 festivals. The original festivals from 1968 are described as based in counter culture - the "hippy" days. A Wiki extract :
1968
Held on 31 August and 1 September 1968.
- Attendance: 10,000 (approx)
Site – Ford farm, near Godshill.
- Headline act: Jefferson Airplane.
- Other acts: Arthur Brown, The Move, Smile, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, Plastic Penny, Fairport Convention, and The Pretty Things.
1969
This took place on 30 and 31 August 1969 at Wootton, with an estimated attendance of 150,000.The line-up included Bob Dylan, The Band, The Nice, The Pretty Things, Marsha Hunt, The Who, Third Ear Band, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Fat Mattress, Joe Cocker. Many celebrities of the day also attended the Festival, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, George Harrison with Pattie Boyd, Ringo Starr with Maureen Starkey, Keith Richards and Jane Fonda.
1970
This event was held between 26 and 30 August 1970 at Afton Down. Attendance has been estimated by the Guinness Book of Records to have been 600,000 or even 700,000, due to an announcement by British Rail at that time concerning the amount of sold ferry tickets, although promoter Ray Foulk has said he believes it to have been only half of that.It is arguably the best-remembered of the early versions of the IoW festivals, due to its line-up, attendance and news coverage. The line-up included Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After, Chicago, The Doors, Lighthouse, The Who (their set produced a live album), Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Moody Blues, Joan Baez, Free, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristofferson, Donovan, John Sebastian, Terry Reid, Taste, and Shawn Phillips
If you know the Isle of Wight you can understand what happened next. There was an act of Parliament banning gatherings of more than 5000 people on the Island. The impact of an extra 500000 + dropout hairy people when the whole Island population was normally less than 100000 was enormous and there was no health and safety to speak of in those days. The Isle of Wight with a backwater mentality couldn't cope - physically or mentally.
It took until 2002 for the IOW Festival to be revived and I have been to most of them. The blue blood origins of the early IOW Festivals has given future Isle of Wight festivals great cache and after Glastonbury it has been perhaps regarded as the UK's premier music festival and has been able to draw some of the world's biggest bands and performers.
I am of course a supporter of the IOW Festival but having been to the last two Glastonbury's (2018 is a fallow year) I have to say the differences are increasingly stark. The scale is different of course - Glasto is so much bigger - it is much more diverse - and far less commercial. As a result the "festival" vibe at Glasto feels more authentic.
Hopefully the IOW Festival will have a long and happy future but is it beginning to lose its cache - its uniqueness? If it is it is partly because there are so many summer music festivals now across the UK. Increasingly bands and performers make money out on tour rather than through record sales. Consequently it is much easier to see bands live. The Killers who were the closing headliners at the IOW on Sunday were performing in Wales the night before! There is overkill - massive competition between festivals for ticket sales and as a consequence great emphasis on squeezing money out of the punters through food and drink sales. Glastonbury has resisted that business model - the IOW is finding it difficult to do so.
But having said all of that once again I really enjoyed this years IOW Festival. The weather was superb which was great - but of course there will always be moaners - finding it too hot!. How could you not enjoy being in the sun - listening to the consummate musician Van Morrison (even if you are not a fan), The Manic Street Preachers and The Killers to close in the darkness. It was brilliant. There is something really great when you get a massive festival crowd at one with the headliner and visa versa. Brandon Flowers really put on a show and the crowd loved it. The Killers back catalogue is so well known - all it took was a few of the opening chords and the audience were right on it. Fantastic happy stuff.
Watch the Killers here :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gzBy0skZNw
I am of course a supporter of the IOW Festival but having been to the last two Glastonbury's (2018 is a fallow year) I have to say the differences are increasingly stark. The scale is different of course - Glasto is so much bigger - it is much more diverse - and far less commercial. As a result the "festival" vibe at Glasto feels more authentic.
Hopefully the IOW Festival will have a long and happy future but is it beginning to lose its cache - its uniqueness? If it is it is partly because there are so many summer music festivals now across the UK. Increasingly bands and performers make money out on tour rather than through record sales. Consequently it is much easier to see bands live. The Killers who were the closing headliners at the IOW on Sunday were performing in Wales the night before! There is overkill - massive competition between festivals for ticket sales and as a consequence great emphasis on squeezing money out of the punters through food and drink sales. Glastonbury has resisted that business model - the IOW is finding it difficult to do so.
But having said all of that once again I really enjoyed this years IOW Festival. The weather was superb which was great - but of course there will always be moaners - finding it too hot!. How could you not enjoy being in the sun - listening to the consummate musician Van Morrison (even if you are not a fan), The Manic Street Preachers and The Killers to close in the darkness. It was brilliant. There is something really great when you get a massive festival crowd at one with the headliner and visa versa. Brandon Flowers really put on a show and the crowd loved it. The Killers back catalogue is so well known - all it took was a few of the opening chords and the audience were right on it. Fantastic happy stuff.
Watch the Killers here :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gzBy0skZNw
 |
| warming up with The Manics |
 |
| Killers going down great |
 |
| very middle of the road! |
 |
| a young Irish lady impressed by my moves - ha! |
No comments:
Post a Comment