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The view from the mud. |
Recollections of festival attendees
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I stumbled across your site almost by accident; I'd just downloaded "Wild Mountain Thyme" from the 69 concert from Napster, and out of curiosity, I searched Google for some more references. I was 19 that year, and travelling through Europe, as middle-class North American kids did then in the summer. Airfares were cheap for students, and you could go almost anywhere, including Algeria and other places I wouldn't dream of going now. I met Australians who were taking the "overland route" home; I doubt that that route still exists. I got to the site on the Isle of Wight about, I don't know, 5 days or so before the concerts, with something like ten pounds in my pocket, and got a job digging toilets and putting up concession tents. All the good jobs, like building the stage, for instance, had been taken by Americans (and, yeah, by guys with carpentry skills). I met a bunch of people working there and we all lived in a small encampment we called Desolation Row. What else were we going to call it?.
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© David Kohn |
We even got semi-famous, and had a "journalist" from The People stay overnight who then went back to London and wrote a nasty piece about us. We got our pictures in various local and London newspapers and on the telly smashing up an old piano that the farmer gave us. I don't know why he gave it to us or why we smashed it up. It made some kind of sense at the time. Later, we got mentioned in Scaduto's bio of Dylan, although he got it wrong: I was the only North American in the group, which included a guy from the Midlands, some middle-class London kids, and a genuine Scottish tramp.
After the concert, that Monday morning, we were all going to stay and make some money helping with the big cleanup. Except that it was so truly desolate with the concert over and everyone just gone away and mountains of garbage all over that we just went home and forgot about it. Later, when I was back at UBC, I got a letter from one guy who was actually promoting a rock show of his own . He must have learned something while he was there, I guess. I have no idea what happened to the tramp. I don't have the pictures that appeared in the papers any more, or the Moroccan wallet that I kept for years with that "Help Bob Dylan Sink the Isle of Wight" thing pasted into it. Anyway, sorry to ramble on, thanks for putting up the web site.
Tony Reed
After
a Friday night gig in Bristol my mate Bruce and I, respectively Guitarist and
Vocalist of Birth (a pretty nifty, though I say it myself, acid rock outfit
from Bath who did alright )and two girls, Caroline and Linda, drove overnight
to Southsea and took a very early morning ferry to Ryde. We only had tickets
for the Saturday and the only band I can actually remember were the Moody Blues
- turgid, but maybe also Joe Cocker - good. We had no interest in Dylan, slept
Saturday night on the beach, were awakened by morning rain and left.
This was about the least interesting festival I ever attended out of some 20
or so. Nothing sticks in my mind about it at all except the sight of a very
tall man who loomed up at us suddenly through the mist and scared us as we walked
down a lane to the beach at about 1 am.
When we returned to Southsea we were quite surprised to find Bruce's ancient
Ford still in the car park as it didn't lock. When we'd left it, Bruce had remarked
philosophically that if it did disappear it had only cost him £20.
We then drove to the New Forest, had a few drinks in a pub and camped for the
night amid the trees on our way home.
Bill Ford
I came across your site having done a search for IoW festivals. I am meeting up with someone this weekend that I lost touch with thirty years ago, and I was trying to refresh my memory of the IoW in 69 and 70 as we went to both of those together. We arrived at Southsea in 69 too late for the last ferry, and kipped on the seafront and could hear (we thought) The Who playing on the island. I can't work out what night that would have been - we saw The Who live (that must have been on Saturday) but we also saw Bonzo Dog (and the wonderful VS RIP), but your listing shows them performing on the Friday. Do you know if anyone performed on Thursday evening? Did Bonzo Dog perform later in the weekend as well? One
thing has always stuck in my mind about Dylan's set - one of the newspapers
said that the crowd booed and threw bottles at Dylan because he was so
late on stage. The booing and bottle throwing was aimed at the people
in the press compound at the front who stood up when Dylan came on stage,
so none of us paying punters behind them could see anything. "Peace
and Love" was one thing, but we still wanted value for money. The
fact that Dylan was late didn't matter at all - he was there and that
was all that mattered. Northampton, UK |
Liverpool scene at IOW 69 |
Mike.Fouracre@artscouncil.org.uk
Dusk © Tim Brighton |
Dont
have any pictures but i was there at the isle of wight to see Bob Dylan,its
the best concert i've ever been to.
We found out where Bob was staying and out of all those people there was just
4 of us who knew where he was.
Every night we would listen to Bob rehearse the show in a converted barn on
the property where he was staying,we had our very own concert,it was amazing,he
came out and caught us one night and had a chat and gave us autographs,I still
have mine to this day.
Von.
© David Kohn |
I was at the concert all three days in 1969. It was right after they landed men on the moon. I was curious if there is any video available of those concerts? I am now an artist and jazz pianist and live in the wine country of northern California. Those days live fond in the memory all though not all of it is clear, we know it was quite a party. I had been visiting my dad's parents in the north of England (St. Annes-on-Sea) and wassupposed to go to the lake district with them. Instead I found a girl who was interested in going and we spilt on the train to points south. From London we hitchhiked to the south coast and took the hovercraft to the island. We found a barn to camp in and then headed to the festival. I couldn't believe all the people. I forgot that in London we had stopped off for the tribute to Brian Jones given for the Stones in Hyde Park. That was outrageous! From London one of our rides was in a Mini Cooper which had five people in it. It went out of control at one point and hit a side guard so we stopped (of course). I remember a beer truck stopped and two burly guys pulled our fender back in place so we could continue on. The Isle was really something else. Never have been to a better concert ever! Cheers Michael Wilson |
I
was at the festival, with a friend, trying to sleep in a tent, not being able
to use the loo. I felt so miserable, unable to see anything, only to hear
the music ,that I gave up before Bob Dylan came on. I went home early.
How sad is that!
W Roy
This was my first festival but perhaps the best and most memorable.I had just turned 18 and some of my favourite groups were to be performing - The Nice, The Who, The Bonzo's, Julie Felix, Tom Paxton, Moody Blues, Family - I had albums by all of them. And of course the greatest songwriter of the 20th century was headlining - this was unmissable. The tickets were ridiculously cheap by today's standards - £2-10s for the full pass (though my wages were only £8 a week as a trainee draftsman). But cost was unimportant; I would have sold my soul to be there. People had started gathering at the site more than a week before the concert began and the newspaper articles and TV reports on the aptly named Desolation Row only served to excite me further - I knew this was where I belonged. The week leading up to the concert I was holidaying with my family and cousins in Cornwall so I only had to catch the coast train to Portsmouth and from there it was a quick ferry ride to Ryde, with it's more than mile long pier. It was almost an homecoming for me as I had spent 3 years growing up on the IOW at a boarding school in Ventnor run by nuns for children with severe asthma (country air and all).
I arrived at the site on the Thursday in the clothes I wore, no tent or blanket and the remains of my holiday money in my pocket - so I spent a bit of it buying a large plastic sheet and a mexican blanket, found a couple of sticks and draped the plastic over it to form a makeshift tent. Luckily it never rained and wrapped up in my blanket I was actually quite warm and comfortable for the duration. I don't actually remember eating anything much at the site, though on the morning of the Saturday I took a bus into Ryde and had lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I didn't stop long in Ryde as I didn't want to miss a minute of the stage activity, but I do remember seeing Nashville Skyline on sale for the first time and wondering if Dylan would be performing any tracks off it. Apart
from Dylan and the Band there were some very memorable performances and
this is where I heard and became an instant fan of Third Ear Band
(one of the most underrated bands of the era in my opinion). Other
acts I have great memories of were the Bonzo's with their inimitable stage
performance, the Moody Blues, and the Nice (who I was a great fan of).
I was also a great fan of the Who at the time and their set just blew
me away. Apart from a few songs at the start and end the main body of
the concert was given over to an almost complete performance of Tommy.
Fantastic! |
© David Kohn |
I was pretty close to the stage for the final evening. (one of your other correspondent's mentions the bottle throwing incident, and yes, the target was not the stage but the plebs in the press area around the front of the stage) I was really looking forward to seeing Richie Havens as I wasn't very familiar with his music, but someone had told me that his appearance was one of the conditions laid down by Dylan before he'd agree to come. Whether there was any truth in this I have no idea but it was a great performance either way. I had just struck up a bit of a friendship with an American couple who had come across on a charter flight just to see Dylan and this is where I had my first taste of Cannabis (which I took to like a duck to water). The Band followed Richie Havens and then suddenly it was time for the culmination of 3 great days of music, fun and festivity. An hour or so later and it was all over and I was left with this overpowering feeling of what now? Suddenly my home-made tent didn't seem so appealing and I just wanted to get home to a warm bath and bed.
© David Kohn |
So
I abandoned my plastic sheet, wrapped my blanket round my shoulders
(I still have it) and joined the great mass of humanity wending it's way
to Ryde pier. Ryde pier is so long that there is a train station at both
ends of it. I was told that people were queuing the entire length
of the pier but I decided to see for myself so caught the train to the end.
Sure enough, for as far as I could see the pier was just jammed. The
word was going round that it was going to take over 24 hours to clear even
though ever ferry available was running. Some people from the train
tried to jump the barriers to the head of the queue and were unceremoniously
turfed back out. I had just decided to walk back into Ryde and find somewhere
to doss when I was asked to help a girl back out over the barrier as she
was about to faint. To my eternal shame, while helping her I managed
to get one leg over the barrier. I stood straddling the barrier until ten
minutes later someone else needed helping out and in the process my other
leg made it over. I didn't get on the next ferry, but the one after
I just made . From there a quick train ride to London where I slept on the
platform along with about a thousand others until the police woke us and
the first train to Derby saw me safely home. I emigrated to Australia the following year so missed the Hendrix concert. I must have been to around 30 open air concerts since then, but Isle of Wight 69 was my first, and to my mind, still the best one ever. Tony Phelps Derby - England |
I was a shy young lad from West Wales just starting an apprenticeship in Plymouth and this was my first festival and first trip to the island. Memories? Well, there I have a problem - I remember the journey there, and . . . . part of the journey back, but the bit in between is a bit of a haze to say the least!! This was due, I am sure, to what I smoked and drank and, of course, the lack of sleep (sic!). I was only 16 and a half and some of my favourite groups, household names these-days, were performing - Moody Blues, The Who, Julie Felix, Joe Cocker, Free - among others. Then, of course, there was Bob Dylan, I was so looking forward to seeing him.
From memory, a number of us, all around the same age, got a train from Plymouth to Lymington (I believe) on the Thursday and then a ferry to the island - and that's where it gets hazy!!! We were new friends and looking forward to what was a totally new experience for us all. I know that I carried a few spare clothes and a sleeping bag and that we shared an improvised tent of sorts - more like a big plastic bag!! We walked and hitchhiked to the site; the tickets were just under half a week's wages at the time, but worth it to see the line-up and remember, this was my first time away. Spent all the weekend on site, eating, drinking & smoking what was available. I remember being wet at some time over the weekend, so either I ended up in a ditch or it must have rained!!! I remember a huge canvas dancehall of sorts and overall, the event seemed to be quite well organised. The music? Well, a lot of it went in one ear and out the other I'm afraid, but I do remember bits of the Who and Moody Blues. Dylan? Must have been "asleep" at the time!!!! The
trip back was uneventful except for arriving back at Plymouth station,
dirty and tired and thinking I was one of the "flower people"!
That lasted a day until I was able to remove all the grime in a hot bath
and catch up on some quality sleep; then it was time to get back to work.
Ah, happy days!!!!!! |
© David Kohn |
My mate and I had finished 6th form and were 18 - waiting to start Uni at Reading and York respectively. The line up looked too good to miss – so many of our favourite bands in 3 days for a few quid. We left our home town in the Midlands on Thursday morning to hitch to Portsmouth. Slow progress meant we had to split up, but met up again in Pompey – we were pretty lucky because the cool people I was riding with were happy to pick up Steve (who was walking the last couple of miles) when we passed him. They took us to a pub near the ferry where a guy in flying jacket offered us acid. We stuck to pints.
© David Kohn |
Late ferry to the IoW and a bus ride to the site – all very well organised. But then a problem. We had been told there would be marquees to sleep in and sure enough there were. But they were full already – the day before the festival started. So there we were, no tent and a weekend of sleeping in the open to look forward to. Luckily in the 4 nights we were there I think it may have only rained a little on one night. This was late August and things could have been so much worse. The first afternoon session in the arena began (as someone else has pointed out) with a band called Marsupialami. Never heard of before or since. No idea why I even remember the name, but the whole event was so mind blowingly good that the opening is still vivid in the memory. Each day’s gig began with an instrumental version of Amazing Grace at full volume on the huge WEMS PA (I’d never seen or heard anything like it) and I can still hear it now. Then Ricky Farr coming on – obviously well up for it but even to a naïve 18 year old seeming a bit too 'Woodstock' for an English audience. Only a few thousand people were there for the first day and we were pretty near the front. By the Friday there were many more and we were further back but still in a good position. By the Sunday Dylan was a dot in the distance. Highlights of the music for me – The Nice (may have headlined Thursday?) The Who (on Saturday afternoon and absolutely brilliant;) the Bonzos; Julie Felix trying to be Joan Baez but eventually giving up and responding to crowd demands for Going to the Zoo. Too many to mention but just looking at the line up after all these years brings it all back.. Dylan – he was a let down, but by then it had all be too awesome to be a problem. |
Other memories – Going swimming in the bay nearby one morning – mainly for a wash. The crowd - so varied, from youngsters like us, hippies by the thousand, a couple of mad older guys from London (looked and sounded like builders) who sat near us getting totally pissed who wandered off separately into the crowd in the dark. Pretty cold on the Saturday evening session – glad we’d kept a couple of bottles of wine to warm us up. Someone calling out 'Wally' in a very loud voice after every song to attract someone they’d lost – eventually most of the crowd were joining in.
I
also recall wandering through my home town on the Monday afternoon on the way
home. There was some sort of minor carnival on which, after the IoW experience,
looked so flat and boring. Life for me had changed and moved on a lot in just
3 days.
One footnote. On a recent break on the IoW I found a strange little shop in
the middle of West Cowes that has all sorts on rock memorabilia – including
a 1969 ticket with the line up listed. I’d completely forgotten that Indo
Jazz Fusions. What were they all about? I must have been asleep.
Paul Roberts
Aug 69 I was barely 20 yrs old and had been wandering around the the UK, Paris, and finally Amsterdam for a month after a less-than-wonderful experience working on a kibbutz earlier in the summer. It was toward the end of Aug and I had to get back to London to catch my charter flight back to Chicago the first week in Sept. No sooner had I gotten back to London than I began to see all sorts of notices about the IOW festival in Ryde. I got on a train and headed down there. One of the people in my compartment was a reporter for the Montreal Gazette, and he suggested that he would get me press credentials as his photographer. We got off the train, got on the ferry, and headed straight to the place Dylan was to be having his press conference (where he didn't say much of anything). After it was over one of the other people in the press room offered to let me crash for the evening in his hotel. In the middle of the night I'm awakened by this guy making some sort of pass at me. I'm a naive kid from the suburbs, so this kind of stuff I was only vaguely aware of by rumor. I just got out of there fast and headed over to the concert area where I met up with some kids from Scotland who were building a little shelter out of hay bales and tarps. I helped them finish and we had a nice comfortable house. |
© David Kohn
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The first morning of the concert things were fairly sane in the little press section in front. I think we had two or 3 rows of seat and some space between the seats and the stage for taking photos or sitting on the ground. I was wearing my press pass in a full top hat I'd picked up at the Amsterdam flea market. I remember some celebrities up there in the press section -- Jane Fonda with Roger Vadim a few seats down from me. Keith Richards further on.
© David Kohn |
Into the afternoon the press section got ever more crowded. Evidently quite a few people (like me) who were not formally members of the press had managed to get passes. The event managers then decided to stop honoring our passes and reissue new ones on a much more selective basis. It looked like I was going to be shit out of luck until I saw Dylan's manager Albert Grossman standing off to the side. He happened to be the brother of one of my mom's best friends, so I walked over to him, introduced myself, and mentioned that I had spent some time with his nephew in the East Village just before I'd left New York a few months back. Although he didn't seem all that interested in the family small talk, he was gracious enough to make sure I got one of the reissued press passes. For
the most part the concert was kind of a blur. My clearest memory is looking
up at Marsha Hunt's thick legs which were hanging out of her black leather
shorts. The Band was great, Dylan less so. Other high points were the
Who, Joe Cocker, and Bonzo Dog Band. David Kohn |
I
hitch-hiked to the festival with three 17 year-old friends, arriving in the
field on the Wednesday. We found space in one of the dormitory tents and unrolled
our sleeping bags before we set off to explore the area. When we got back, at
about 7 pm, we found that this was also the disco tent with John Peel playing
records and showing a "light show". The light show was a projector
with a small glass ring filled with different coloured oils rotating in front
of the lens. To us it was magical. Our sleeping bags had been neatly rolled
up to make room for the music fans but our stake was made and no-one tried to
poach it.
We had tickets for the three days and
used them, almost going without sleep for a week. We lived off fish and chips,
burgers and music. I remember Jethro Tull, Dylan (of course), the Who, and all
the others who just took it in turns to thrill us. I also remember the naked
girl, who happened to be right next to us. It was no big deal, everything seemed
so natural.
At the end of the festival we made
our way down to Ryde and spent the night in the doorway of a chemist shop. The
chemist woke us up in the morning without any compaint, he needed to sweep the
doorway before opening for the day.
Mike Thornley
I lived as an army brat, all over the world until 1969 when we retired. I had a sense of restlessness that was part of my genes by that time and a strong energy for Bob Dylan. I left work in Wiltshire early that Friday Aug 29, and made it to the Festival along with a number of people who were fellow Fest-goers who I had met on the ferry. I was 16 then. I lay down on my sleeping bag in campsite 1 and listened to The Nice etc through the night. Saturday was cold but surreal. All the bands had an impact. The Moody Blues were great but a little too perfect. I met up with some homeboys, though that wasn't a current phrase then. We got stoned together and shared a campfire later.
Sunday was warm and later in the day there were hundreds , as I remember, of square feet of foam pumped onto an area of grass. I waded around blissfully and of course got soaked so stripped down to skin and laid my clothes on the ground to dry, there were many of us naked or nearly so but we were generally ignored. A photo showed up on the front page of the Daily Express of a couple of bare bodies but too distant to see if one of them was me. I wished for more from Bob but was happy and made my way to Ryde to sleep in the parking lot of the ferry building until the first Monday morning boat took us back to the mainland. The trip over the Solent was more than just physical. I felt like I was leaving a place where for maybe the first time I'm my life I was home. Walking from the bus stop to our house in the Army camp of Tidworth, where we still lived during the last army year, I felt very transformed from two days before when I had left walking in the opposite direction. |
© David Kohn |
I
went to the following festival in 1970, a different me and another story. For
28 years now I have lived in Sonoma California and it was so long ago but still
an energy that comes back to me when I relive that weekend in '69.
David Ian Robbins
The empty arena © Tim Brighton |
I
remember being at the Isle of Wight in 1969 about half way back and centre in
the arena.
I got chatting to a girl about my age, 18 at the time, and we talked about this,
that and music. Slowly she began to drape herself over me, which was nice, but
then the Band came on and I can still remember thinking, "I wish this woman
would bugger off before Dylan comes on" Well, I was a young Welshman from
the valleys travelling further from home than I ever had up to that point and
I really needed to hear Dylan without interruption!
As the Band set ended she explained that she was the daughter of a hotelier
on the IOW and a few of the bands were staying at her dad's hotel, hence her
freebie ticket ! She was hoping to interview some of the musicians at the hotel
in order to try and break into journalism and, not being a Dylan fan was going
back and did I want to come? I was now torn between going off with her and missing
Bob or staying for Bob and missing out on a bit of an adventure.Bob won and
his set was mediocre (but it was still this Welsh boy's first festival and I
wanted to savour each bob moment !!!).
I am happy to say that I never really regretted staying!
Lawson
was
walking along a lane and met this guy with a big hat. He said, "Do you
want a job"
So I was on stage crew. Under the stage when the Band practices. The only two
people in the arena.
Saw Tom Paxton stuffing money into his jerkin
Told to keep people away from climbing over the picket fence
Tried to stop a big bloke from coming in No Room - Al Grossman! as there was
no room and then saw who was behind him. God How embarrassing
Stepped on Pattie Boydes??? hat by mistake and got a dirty look. Ringo Starr
was sitting in front of me.
Used the money to make a record and went travelling ended up as a radio producer
Mike
Hi
went to i.o.w.69. i went with 2 pals of mine, we were all 18 years old from dublin.our trip began dublin to holyhead by boat, holyhead to euston by train,euston to waterloo,waterloo to portsmouth,and then ferry to i.o.w.some journey .
we arrived on the island around 11pm and pitched tent along with thousands of other kids.i remember the tickets cost a fiver for the weekend.my pals were into a lot of the bands that were playing ,but i had come to see dylan.i remember the weather was great.unlike woodstock.
on the sunday morning hundreds of us went to the beach which was over the hill ,everybody went in naked which was very daring for 3 innocent irish lads. the compere of the show was a fella called richie farr,who all weekend said that the beatles were in the crowd ,and maybe they would play with dylan at the end. dylan was supposed to come on stage at 8 pm sunday to close the festival .he came on at 11 - 3 hours late . he played for 40 minutes and was gone . the crowd assumed he was taking a break,but he never came back.the crowd went nuts,and breaking up the fence around the site.
myself and my pals decided to try and reach the stage,which we eventually did by crawling under the canvas.we found richie still on the stage and had an argument with about how let down we felt with dylan and all all the bullshit from farr himself all weekend.he asked us where we were from and counted out 15 quid which he gave us to cover our outlay for the weekend and told us to go into the tent backstage and have a drink. the only person we recognised was jack bruce from cream.
the next day the site was like a bomb had hit it. we were asked if we would help clear it for a few bob,and we were not in any hurry we helped clear up.apart from dylan the gig was brilliant and we met loads of great people.we returned in 1970 to see hendrix in what would be his last gig.thats my story of a great time in my life .
frank devlin
if you have any info you can contribute to the site, such as details of recordings. recollections, programmes, tickets, pix or articles please Contact us
You can view many great photos of the acts at IOW 69 here at Robert Ellis's photo site
if you have any info you can contribute to the site, such as details of recordings. recollections, programmes, tickets, pix or articles please Contact us
Contents
1969 Festival
