Isle of Wight Festival 1969

The 1969 Isle of Wight Festival was held on August 30 - August 31, 1969. It was held at Wootton and attracted an audience of approximately 150,000 to see the acts such as Bob Dylan, The Who and Free. It was the second of three legendary music festivals held on the Isle of Wight between 1968 and 1970. It was believed to be a well managed and relatively trouble free event unlike the 1970 festival.

The festival was so much larger and more popular than the year before due to the performance of Bob Dylan. He was reluctant to perform his comeback show on this unknown island until the promoters showed him a short video of the Island's cultural and literary heritage. This appealed to Dylan's artistic sensibilities as he was enthusiastic about performing in Tennyson country. Prior to the festival Bob Dylan and The Band rehearsed at Forelands Farm in Bembridge, and were joined by The Beatles minus Paul McCartney. Amongst the 150,000 audience were Elton John, Bill Wyman, Jane Fonda and the Rolling Stones Keith Richards.

Bob Dylan's Performance

On 31 August a nervous Bob Dylan arrived on stage in a cream suit recalling Hank Williams, with a haircut and a short beard, performing his recent pieces from "Nashville Skyline" and "John Wesley Harding": much to the surprise and confusion/consternation of the audience. During the press conference prior to his performance, Dylan remarked he came to the Isle of Wight to see the birthplace of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, because he was "just curious". John Lennon opined that his performance was reasonable, though slightly flat; and still the audience was awaiting Godot or Jesus. Eric Clapton, however, was mesmerised, clearly - as he has stated, being inspired back to the blues and country by Bob Dylan and The Band's album "Music From Big Pink" - saying "Dylan was fantastic. He changed everything. ... [The audience] couldn't understand it. You had to be a musician to understand it." Levon Helm commented on their latency on the bill: "Bob had an extra list of songs with about eight or ten different titles ... that we would've gone ahead and done had it seemed like the right thing to do. But it seemed like everyone was a bit tired ... the festival was three days old by then." Tom Paxton mentions the "negative reaction in the British press, including downright fabrications: like saying he had run off stage half-way through. ... I went with him and The Beatles to the farmhouse where he was clearly in a merry mood because he had felt it had gone so well. ... The Beatles had brought a test pressing of [ "Abbey Road" ] and we listened to it and had quite a party."

The Who's Performance

The Who presented their standard set at that time, which included the rock opera "Tommy" as they had recently released that album and were touring in support of it. They had just returned from a tour of American where they had performed at Woodstock about two weeks earlier. Keith Moon looked depressed. They opened with "Heaven And Hell," "I Can't Explain," "Fortune Teller," "Young Man Blues," and then performed the opera nearly in full, finishing up with "Summertime Blues," "My Generation" and "Naked Eye."

Line Up

* The Band
* Blodwyn Pig
* Blonde On Blonde
* Bonzo Dog Dooh Dah Band (see Bonzo Dog Band)
* Edgar Broughton Band
* Joe Cocker
* Aynsley Dunbar
* Bob Dylan
* Eclection
* Family
* Gary Farr
* Fat Mattress
* Julie Felix
* Free
* Gypsy
* Richie Havens
* Marsha Hunt And White Trash
* Indo Jazz Fusions
* Liverpool Scene
* Mighty Baby
* The Moody Blues
* The Nice
* Tom Paxton
* Pentangle
* Pretty Things
* Third Ear Band
* The Who

External links

* [http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/iow1969.html Isle of Wight Festival 1969]
* [http://community.isleofwightfestival.com/content/IsleofWightFestivalHistory.aspx Isle of Wight Festival History]
* [http://community.isleofwightfestival.com/ Isle of Wight Festival]