Fact #61499
When:
Short story:
The Beatles attend the Isle Of Wight Festival, England, UK, Europe, largely to see headliner Bob Dylan. Also on the bill are Richie Havens, Tom Paxton, Pentangle, Julie Felix, Gary Farr, The Liverpool Scene, Indo Jazz Fusions and The Third Ear Band. Keith Richards and Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones also attend the show.Full article:
BOB DYLAN AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT - THE ORAL STORY
31 AUGUST 1969 : DYLAN TOPS THE BILL AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT
Tony Bramwell (Beatles' aide) : I was up in London, hanging out with Eric Clapton and some others. Early in the afternoon, Eric said "Let's go to the Isle Of Wight to see Bob Dylan." He organised a coach and we met outside Robert Stigwood's office and trundled down with all of Cream and Jackie Lomax, singing and drinking all the way.
Rikki Farr (co-promoter) : One moment I shall treasure for the rest of my life was at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival. We had been trying to convince The Beatles to get back together and play, but it never quite came together. What did happen, though, was a kind of spontaneous superstar jam session in the afternoon at a mock tudor house where Bob Dylan was staying.
The Beatles came down to watch the show, but in the afternoon they all got together in the house and I saw on stage the most incredible supergroup you could imagine: Dylan, The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Jackie Lomax, all just jamming. Ginger Baker would get off the drum stool and Ringo would step in. Eric Clapton would take a solo, and then George Harrison would take the next one. It was amazing.
Al Aronowitz (journalist in Dylan entourage) : Dylan then invited The Beatles to a game of tennis on the Forelands Farm courts. "I'll play on condition that nobody really knows how," quipped John and, as Bob and John teamed up against Ringo and George, Patti Harrison giggled, "This is the most exclusive game of doubles in the world." The game ended at 5.30 and Dylan piled into a white van along with Sara, Ringo, Maureen and me for the five mile drive to the festival site. We joked all the way.
Tom Paxton (singer-songwriter) : I was having a very good afternoon at The Isle Of Wight, I was brought back on three times for encores and, when I came off, Bob invited me into his private enclosure where he introduced me to John Lennon, who delighted me by knowing the name of one of my songs! I hung out with them for the rest of the day.
Julie Felix (folk singer) : He looked like a happily married man and father but he was very nervous because he hadn't sung for some years ... I talked to him for a long time because The Band had gone on, and they were going down really well, it was the first big gig they had done on their own. And so they just stayed out there for an extra hour or something, meanwhile poor Bob Dylan was getting more and more nervous about going on.
Ron Smith (site manager) : I remember giving up my seat to a couple of The Beatles, and also seeing Dylan at the back of the stage, in his enclosed area which he wouldn't have anyone else in, with his boozing partner, our security chief. There was a fantastic feeling there.
Jeff Dexter (co-MC) : Bob was supposed to go on right after The Band. It was the end of the weekend and I really wanted to get out from behind my decks, get high, and watch Dylan, but there was such a delay. So I kept putting on more records. Eventually I ran back to the main production caravan to see what was happening, and there's Bob, the spokesman for our generation, plus his manager, Albert Grossman, waiting to be sure they've got their percentage of the gate money before he'll go on.
Then our festival doctor, Sam Hutt, supplied me with a little bottle of tincture of cannabis which I swigged back immediately. Powerful stuff. I was also smoking some incredibly wacky grass by Richie Havens so, by the time I got back to my deck and put on Hare Krishna ... because George Harrison was out there ... I could hardly see. I fell face down on the deck halfway through the track and ended up watching Dylan from Richie's knee, with Richie operating me like a glove puppet whenever it came time to clap.
Tony Bramwell : We watched Dylan's set from six feet in front of stage, just along from The Beatles and Terence Stamp...
Eric Clapton : He was fantastic. He changed everything. He used to have a blues voice but he changed voices, and then suddenly he was a country and western singer with a white suit on. He was Hank Williams. They (the audience) couldn't understand it. You had to be a musician to understand it.
Rikki Farr (co-promoter) : The PA system was 2000 watts, huge for the time, so as well as being heard by the audience, the music was clearly audible to the inmates of Parkhurst jail and the monks in Quarr monastery, who hadn't heard live music since the second world war.
Jonathan Taplin : The sound at the Isle Of Wight was terrific. I remember we liked the WEM system so much that we got one ourselves. The sound just punched through, out of these huge stacks, and my sound guy Ed Anderson was blown away.
Tom Paxton : One thing Dylan sang that I never saw mentioned anywhere was Wild Mountain Thyme, which I thought was a nice gesture, to sing a British folk songs, like a recognition of the roots of the music.
George Harrison : The concert was marvellous ... he gave a brilliant performance.
John Lennon : He gave a reasonable, albeit slightly flat, performance but everyone was expecting Godot, or Jesus, to appear.
Levon Helm (The Band) : Bob had an extra list of songs with eight or ten different titles, with question marks by them, that we would've went ahead and done, had it seemed like the thing to do. But it seemed like everybody was a bit tired and the Festival was three days old by then and so, if everybody else is ready to go home, let's go.
Richard Brown (fan) : Dylan was rubbish and, after he finished, everyone wanted to go home at the same time. We jogged to the ferry as the buses couldn't move. Police used hoses to knock people off the terminal roof. Hundreds of us slept overnight in the railway station and got a ferry the next day.
Tom Paxton : What astonished me was the negative reaction in the British press, including downright fabrications, like saying he had run off the stage halfway through the set. It was a magical performance and, afterwards, I went with him and The Beatles to the farmhouse where he was clearly in a merry mood, because he felt it had gone so well. The Beatles had brought a test pressing of their next album, Abbey Road, and we listened to that and had quite a party.
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31 AUGUST 1969 : DYLAN TOPS THE BILL AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT
Tony Bramwell (Beatles' aide) : I was up in London, hanging out with Eric Clapton and some others. Early in the afternoon, Eric said "Let's go to the Isle Of Wight to see Bob Dylan." He organised a coach and we met outside Robert Stigwood's office and trundled down with all of Cream and Jackie Lomax, singing and drinking all the way.
Rikki Farr (co-promoter) : One moment I shall treasure for the rest of my life was at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival. We had been trying to convince The Beatles to get back together and play, but it never quite came together. What did happen, though, was a kind of spontaneous superstar jam session in the afternoon at a mock tudor house where Bob Dylan was staying.
The Beatles came down to watch the show, but in the afternoon they all got together in the house and I saw on stage the most incredible supergroup you could imagine: Dylan, The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Jackie Lomax, all just jamming. Ginger Baker would get off the drum stool and Ringo would step in. Eric Clapton would take a solo, and then George Harrison would take the next one. It was amazing.
Al Aronowitz (journalist in Dylan entourage) : Dylan then invited The Beatles to a game of tennis on the Forelands Farm courts. "I'll play on condition that nobody really knows how," quipped John and, as Bob and John teamed up against Ringo and George, Patti Harrison giggled, "This is the most exclusive game of doubles in the world." The game ended at 5.30 and Dylan piled into a white van along with Sara, Ringo, Maureen and me for the five mile drive to the festival site. We joked all the way.
Tom Paxton (singer-songwriter) : I was having a very good afternoon at The Isle Of Wight, I was brought back on three times for encores and, when I came off, Bob invited me into his private enclosure where he introduced me to John Lennon, who delighted me by knowing the name of one of my songs! I hung out with them for the rest of the day.
Julie Felix (folk singer) : He looked like a happily married man and father but he was very nervous because he hadn't sung for some years ... I talked to him for a long time because The Band had gone on, and they were going down really well, it was the first big gig they had done on their own. And so they just stayed out there for an extra hour or something, meanwhile poor Bob Dylan was getting more and more nervous about going on.
Ron Smith (site manager) : I remember giving up my seat to a couple of The Beatles, and also seeing Dylan at the back of the stage, in his enclosed area which he wouldn't have anyone else in, with his boozing partner, our security chief. There was a fantastic feeling there.
Jeff Dexter (co-MC) : Bob was supposed to go on right after The Band. It was the end of the weekend and I really wanted to get out from behind my decks, get high, and watch Dylan, but there was such a delay. So I kept putting on more records. Eventually I ran back to the main production caravan to see what was happening, and there's Bob, the spokesman for our generation, plus his manager, Albert Grossman, waiting to be sure they've got their percentage of the gate money before he'll go on.
Then our festival doctor, Sam Hutt, supplied me with a little bottle of tincture of cannabis which I swigged back immediately. Powerful stuff. I was also smoking some incredibly wacky grass by Richie Havens so, by the time I got back to my deck and put on Hare Krishna ... because George Harrison was out there ... I could hardly see. I fell face down on the deck halfway through the track and ended up watching Dylan from Richie's knee, with Richie operating me like a glove puppet whenever it came time to clap.
Tony Bramwell : We watched Dylan's set from six feet in front of stage, just along from The Beatles and Terence Stamp...
Eric Clapton : He was fantastic. He changed everything. He used to have a blues voice but he changed voices, and then suddenly he was a country and western singer with a white suit on. He was Hank Williams. They (the audience) couldn't understand it. You had to be a musician to understand it.
Rikki Farr (co-promoter) : The PA system was 2000 watts, huge for the time, so as well as being heard by the audience, the music was clearly audible to the inmates of Parkhurst jail and the monks in Quarr monastery, who hadn't heard live music since the second world war.
Jonathan Taplin : The sound at the Isle Of Wight was terrific. I remember we liked the WEM system so much that we got one ourselves. The sound just punched through, out of these huge stacks, and my sound guy Ed Anderson was blown away.
Tom Paxton : One thing Dylan sang that I never saw mentioned anywhere was Wild Mountain Thyme, which I thought was a nice gesture, to sing a British folk songs, like a recognition of the roots of the music.
George Harrison : The concert was marvellous ... he gave a brilliant performance.
John Lennon : He gave a reasonable, albeit slightly flat, performance but everyone was expecting Godot, or Jesus, to appear.
Levon Helm (The Band) : Bob had an extra list of songs with eight or ten different titles, with question marks by them, that we would've went ahead and done, had it seemed like the thing to do. But it seemed like everybody was a bit tired and the Festival was three days old by then and so, if everybody else is ready to go home, let's go.
Richard Brown (fan) : Dylan was rubbish and, after he finished, everyone wanted to go home at the same time. We jogged to the ferry as the buses couldn't move. Police used hoses to knock people off the terminal roof. Hundreds of us slept overnight in the railway station and got a ferry the next day.
Tom Paxton : What astonished me was the negative reaction in the British press, including downright fabrications, like saying he had run off the stage halfway through the set. It was a magical performance and, afterwards, I went with him and The Beatles to the farmhouse where he was clearly in a merry mood, because he felt it had gone so well. The Beatles had brought a test pressing of their next album, Abbey Road, and we listened to that and had quite a party.