The Grandad of all festivals
The Isle of Wight is home to more festivals than you can shake a stick at (there’s probably a festival dedicated to stick-shaking as well. If your interest is nautical there is Cowes Week, or perhaps the UK’s largest walking festival or you may be interested by the Garlic Festival. If you are not quite so well connected and more into dancing and trancing than yachting, you could always consider Bestival. The father-figure of all festivals has to be the legendary rock festival on the Isle of Wight.
It all began in 1968 in a field, near Godshill, Isle of Wight where assorted hippies gathered for a one day event. Jefferson Airplane was the only headlining act to appear at the festival, performing on a stage made from two trailers bolted together. Unknown bands at the time T-Rex and the Move, were the main support acts. This inauspicious shambles was the first great UK rock festival and it sowed the seed for far bigger things to come. 2010’s Isle of Wight Festival runs from 10th to 13th June and is sure to keep up the recent good work, but it wasn’t always like that.
The [Isle of Wight Festival|IOW festival] became far more ambitious in 1969, expanding to two whole days and headlined by Bob Dylan, mainly because the prospect of performing on Tennyson’s home ground appealed to him– that and he saw a film of the island. The Who, Joe Cocker and Free were some of the top quality acts that followed. After that success, IOW Festival promoters planned a stellar line up for 1970 featuring Jimi Hendrix (his last performance, he died a month later), Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, The Who, Leonard Cohen, Free and The Moody Blues. The five day festival and carnival was supposed to be the English answer to ‘Woodstock’, but sadly the love and peace ethos of the American original was not on show as almost one million hippies went on the rampage across the island forcing the authorities to clamp down on future festivals. After 1970 it became impossible to hold a festival on the Isle of Wight with the ‘Isle of Wight Act’ passed by Parliament.
In 2002, after a gap of thirty two years, the festival returned with the Charlatans headlining and ably supported by Robert Plant and his band. Thousands of music fans took [Isle of Wight ferries|IOW ferries|a ferry to Isle of Wight|an Isle of Wight ferry|an IOW ferry] to enjoy the festival’s revival and this was just the start of things to come. Once hooked to the Island festival scene, it is only natural to return for Bestival which is traditionally and end-of-summer event.
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