1969 Isle Wight Festival Music
30 & 31 August
1969 festival #38
1969 Isle Wight Festival Music
1968
Brothers Ron (single, 26-year-old estate agent) and Ray (23-year-old newspaper printer, living on the Isle of Wight with his wife and two children) Foulk organized the first Isle of Wight Festival of Music in 1968. It was a relatively small one–10,000 to 15,000. Its poster also referred to it as “The great south coast bankholiday pop festivity.” The overnight festival featured the Jefferson Airplane and several other British bands.
1969 Isle Wight Festival Music
Eleven international
All but eleven of the 51 1969 festivals (plus Woodstock) I’ve written about happened in the United States.
The first non-US event was the Nottingham’s Pop & Blues Festival on May 10. Then came the Aldergrove Beach Rock Festival on May 17, the Cambridge Midsummer Pop Festival on June 9, Toronto Pop on June 21 – 22; the Bath Festival of Blues on June 28, the Wonderland Pop Festival in London Canada on August 13.
All before Woodstock.
Before the Isle of Wight was the Vancouver Pop Festival (Aug 22) and the Teenage Fair (Aug 23).
The Toronto Rock and Roll Revival and the Internatinales Essener Pop & Blues Festival (Oct 9) would follow Wight.
1969 Isle Wight Festival Music
Dylan 1969
Woodstock Ventures, organizers of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, had hoped and nearly assumed that they could book the still reclusive Bob Dylan. The biggest rumor that august weekend in Bethel was that he’d be there.
Dylan had stopped touring after his 1966 motorcycle accident, an event still shrouded in mystery as to how serious the accident was and how long he actually needed to recuperate. Some conspiracy theorists conjecture that there was no accident, but Dylan simply wanted out for awhile.
Whatever the case, the Foulk brothers formed Fiery Creations Limited to put on another show and they hit gold by successfully luring Bob Dylan to their island. To say he headlined is an understatement. Despite the Beatles continued success and influence, even they tipped their hats to Dylan. [Ray Foulk’s story from a 2015 Independent article]
1969 Isle Wight Festival Music
Line up
There was a “warm up” day on Friday, but the line ups for the two main days were:
Saturday 30 August
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Sunday 31 August
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Note the acts who returned to or came to the UK from Woodstock for this festival: The Band, Joe Cocker, Richie Havens, and the Who.
A “what-goes-round-comes-round” story is that on the flight that the Who were on, a passenger by the name of Howard Mills and his family were also on board. Howard had long-promised his family a trip abroad and they and he had recently had a difficult spring and summer. It was his property in Wallkill, NY that Woodstock Ventures had initially contracted to hold their festival on before the Wallkill government forced them out. The Who got a kick out of that story.
150,000 people sailed to the island for the concert including all the Beatles themselves except Paul McCartney. A number far less than Woodstock two weeks earlier, but still impacting the rural island significantly.
1969 Isle Wight Festival Music
1970
The 1970 event had over 600,000 attendees. Over 50 acts performed including Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, The Doors, The Who, Lighthouse, Ten Years After,Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Joni Mitchell, The Moody Blues, Melanie, Donovan, Gilberto Gil, Free, Chicago, Richie Havens, John Sebastian, Leonard Cohen, Jethro Tull, Taste and Tiny Tim.
Those “excessive” numbers led Parliament to pass the “Isle of Wight Act” in 1971 which prevented gatherings of more than 5,000 people on the island without a special licence.
The New York State legislature passed a similar act for the same reasons.
1969 Isle Wight Festival Music
Resurrection
It was not until 2004 that a resurrected festival happened and has occurred annually since, albeit on a much smaller scale than ’69 and ’70. [2018 Guardian article].
Unlike Bethel, NY attitude, which continues to severely restrict the number of attendees that the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is permitted, the current residents of Wight welcome the festival that ” brings £10m into the local community because people generally stay longer than the festival. It creates tourism.” [current Isle of Wight Festival site]
1969 Isle Wight Festival Music
2015
In 2015, Ray Foulk with his daughter Caroline Foulk, published ‘Stealing Dylan from Woodstock.”
The book is an excellent story of the 1969 Wight festival with many references to the Woodstock festival. One hopes that the Wight information is more accurate than the Woodstock information, which, has many odd Woodstock Haze moments.
For example, the John Morris was Woodstock’s main financial backer. The occasional rain becomes continuously torrential, drug use and bad reactions become universal and general discomfort becomes fully chaotic.
In other words, even hyperbolic than usual if that’s possible.
Next 1969 festival: Texas International Pop Festival