Fact #189765
When:
Short story:
The fourth day of the Isle Of Wight Festival, Isle Of Wight, England, UK, Europe, features The Doors, Joni Mitchell, The Who, Sly And The Family Stone, Cat Mother, Free, John Sebastian, Emerson, Lake And Palmer, Tiny Tim and Mungo Jerry.
Full article:
Richard Wootton (audience) : I awoke feeling crushed and realised there was a man asleep on top of me and my sleeping bag. He turned out to be a friend of my tent-mate Ray Aplin, who’d discovered him during Procol Harum’s after-midnight set (which I'd left) with no sleeping bag or tent so invited him back to our very small home!
Saturday would be the best day musically. We were a long way from the stage, couldn’t see the artists but the sound was good and the sun was shining and everyone around us was suitably chilled. John Sebastian caught the mood of the crowd perfectly and played a laid-back solo set for two hours with a lot of Lovin’ Spoonful songs.
Ten Years After followed, then Joni Mitchell with an uneven set troubled by a protester grabbing her microphone.
(Source : Richard Wootton Facebook post)
Bernard Weinraub (reviewer, New York Times) : At one point, the blond, fragile guitarist and composer Joni Mitchell was interrupted by a youth who rushed on stage to shout that the three-day festival should be free. The bearded youth was pushed off stage quickly, but hundreds in the audience shrieked, "Let him speak," and started clapping in unison.
Miss Mitchell spoke in a quavering voice. "Look, look I got my feelings, too," she said trembling. "It's very difficult to lay something down before an audience like this. Please."
She then began singing her composition, Woodstock, and later returned to several encores.
Richard Wootton : Then came the novelty act that was Tiny Tim, who sang old time songs and played the ukulele. He sang There’ll Always Be An England and Land Of Hope And Glory through a megaphone which brought a surprisingly ecstatic response from the enormous crowd. Then two records were played - Free’s All Right Now and John Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance at which point a hot air balloon rose above us. An incredible moment.
The best set of the festival came at twilight from Miles Davis who I’d never heard before. Journalist Richard Williams described it perfectly in Melody Maker: “A kaleidoscopic melody based on shards of tunes from his regular repertoire. . Just before the set drew to a close, with the day’s last rays of light almost gone and the rhythm section bubbling away in the warm dusk, Davis emitted a passage of pristine lyricism, as perfectly distilled as anything from the years of Italian suits and My Funny Valentine.”
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Doors and The Who followed.
Vic Churchill (fan) : I took a lighter along, had my first ever spliff while The Who were doing Tommy. That was the high point for me - shame I was so far back.
Ray Manzarek (keyboardist, The Doors) : Shortly after we arrived, I met Donovan for the first time. He had his gypsy caravan with him and he was staying in that. He bounded up to me full of good cheer, gave me a big hug and said, "John, it's great to see you!" Then he must have sensed that I wasn't responding, so he stepped back and looked again. I had the same sideburns and wire-rimmed glasses and hair colour as John Sebastian, and that's who Don thought I was. Then he said, "Oh, but you're not John ... but you are somebody, aren't you?”
Peter Daltrey (Kaleidoscope) : All I remember is the view from the stage: the endless blue sky, the endless audience, the thousands camped for free on the rolling hills to the right, the heat, the clouds of red dust, Joan Baez wandering by looking stunning, the movie camera thrust in my face as I was told our set was to be cut in half, the terror, the sublime lift after the first wave of applause, the evenings in the Red Indian camp with the fires burning, the thump of distant music, crouching below the stage waiting for the nod so Ed and I could leap up and be allowed to play an acoustic `Let the world wash in` to half a million hippies, the leaden realisation that we`d been conned and ripped off and stuffed and abused by the brothers Farr, the sleepless nights of total physical and mental exhaustion, breakfast at Herbie Snowball`s hotel in Shanklin - and returning there thirty years later on a family holiday and standing across the road and looking up at the window where three decades earlier a young man once stared at the orange moon...
Roger Daltrey (vocals, The Who) : The Isle of Wight is a great performance. There's a great film of it. It was the last of the big '60s festivals, the end of that Woodstock era. It's a valid piece of rock history. I think all that stuff deserves an airing.
Ray Manzarek (The Doors) : From the stage, you couldn’t see the end of the audience. It seemed to extend to infinity… The hippy era was ending. There was a lot of bad vibes backstage with the money guys. Donovan mistook me for John Sebastian. We talked for about five minutes before he realised. I remember Jim (Morrison) and Roger Daltrey having an Irish whiskey drinking contest backstage, so Jim was drunk and depressed but we played our asses off.
Sue Whittles (fan) : A lot of emphasis was put on damage and violence but what actually happened was that for five days all barriers of class, creed and nationality were ignored. People shared their food, money and possessions with strangers and the ‘natural reserve’ of the British was entirely forgotten.
Ray Dorset (Mungo Jerry) : The show was running several hours late and we decided not to go on as we would have been playing in the early hours of the morning. I believe that because of this Free played twice as the first time that they went on it was about 6am.
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Saturday would be the best day musically. We were a long way from the stage, couldn’t see the artists but the sound was good and the sun was shining and everyone around us was suitably chilled. John Sebastian caught the mood of the crowd perfectly and played a laid-back solo set for two hours with a lot of Lovin’ Spoonful songs.
Ten Years After followed, then Joni Mitchell with an uneven set troubled by a protester grabbing her microphone.
(Source : Richard Wootton Facebook post)
Bernard Weinraub (reviewer, New York Times) : At one point, the blond, fragile guitarist and composer Joni Mitchell was interrupted by a youth who rushed on stage to shout that the three-day festival should be free. The bearded youth was pushed off stage quickly, but hundreds in the audience shrieked, "Let him speak," and started clapping in unison.
Miss Mitchell spoke in a quavering voice. "Look, look I got my feelings, too," she said trembling. "It's very difficult to lay something down before an audience like this. Please."
She then began singing her composition, Woodstock, and later returned to several encores.
Richard Wootton : Then came the novelty act that was Tiny Tim, who sang old time songs and played the ukulele. He sang There’ll Always Be An England and Land Of Hope And Glory through a megaphone which brought a surprisingly ecstatic response from the enormous crowd. Then two records were played - Free’s All Right Now and John Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance at which point a hot air balloon rose above us. An incredible moment.
The best set of the festival came at twilight from Miles Davis who I’d never heard before. Journalist Richard Williams described it perfectly in Melody Maker: “A kaleidoscopic melody based on shards of tunes from his regular repertoire. . Just before the set drew to a close, with the day’s last rays of light almost gone and the rhythm section bubbling away in the warm dusk, Davis emitted a passage of pristine lyricism, as perfectly distilled as anything from the years of Italian suits and My Funny Valentine.”
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Doors and The Who followed.
Vic Churchill (fan) : I took a lighter along, had my first ever spliff while The Who were doing Tommy. That was the high point for me - shame I was so far back.
Ray Manzarek (keyboardist, The Doors) : Shortly after we arrived, I met Donovan for the first time. He had his gypsy caravan with him and he was staying in that. He bounded up to me full of good cheer, gave me a big hug and said, "John, it's great to see you!" Then he must have sensed that I wasn't responding, so he stepped back and looked again. I had the same sideburns and wire-rimmed glasses and hair colour as John Sebastian, and that's who Don thought I was. Then he said, "Oh, but you're not John ... but you are somebody, aren't you?”
Peter Daltrey (Kaleidoscope) : All I remember is the view from the stage: the endless blue sky, the endless audience, the thousands camped for free on the rolling hills to the right, the heat, the clouds of red dust, Joan Baez wandering by looking stunning, the movie camera thrust in my face as I was told our set was to be cut in half, the terror, the sublime lift after the first wave of applause, the evenings in the Red Indian camp with the fires burning, the thump of distant music, crouching below the stage waiting for the nod so Ed and I could leap up and be allowed to play an acoustic `Let the world wash in` to half a million hippies, the leaden realisation that we`d been conned and ripped off and stuffed and abused by the brothers Farr, the sleepless nights of total physical and mental exhaustion, breakfast at Herbie Snowball`s hotel in Shanklin - and returning there thirty years later on a family holiday and standing across the road and looking up at the window where three decades earlier a young man once stared at the orange moon...
Roger Daltrey (vocals, The Who) : The Isle of Wight is a great performance. There's a great film of it. It was the last of the big '60s festivals, the end of that Woodstock era. It's a valid piece of rock history. I think all that stuff deserves an airing.
Ray Manzarek (The Doors) : From the stage, you couldn’t see the end of the audience. It seemed to extend to infinity… The hippy era was ending. There was a lot of bad vibes backstage with the money guys. Donovan mistook me for John Sebastian. We talked for about five minutes before he realised. I remember Jim (Morrison) and Roger Daltrey having an Irish whiskey drinking contest backstage, so Jim was drunk and depressed but we played our asses off.
Sue Whittles (fan) : A lot of emphasis was put on damage and violence but what actually happened was that for five days all barriers of class, creed and nationality were ignored. People shared their food, money and possessions with strangers and the ‘natural reserve’ of the British was entirely forgotten.
Ray Dorset (Mungo Jerry) : The show was running several hours late and we decided not to go on as we would have been playing in the early hours of the morning. I believe that because of this Free played twice as the first time that they went on it was about 6am.