Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival

I remember the ferry ride over, carrying bags of drugs. Not mine, but carrying for a friend. It might have been speed, but since I only smoked pot I had no interest in it-no brains either, apparently!

We went for the whole 5 days because I could and didn't know any better. The organizers handed out paper sleeping bags to a waiting throng on the day we arrived. We slept out-side the gates - 20 ft. away - and ran for a decent position when the gates opened the next morning.

I don't remember eating or defecating, or very much of the music, but I have photos so I know I was there! I do remember people throwing glass pop bottles over the heads of those in front for some unknown reason, and even in my altered star realized they were idiots.

John Sebastien - Lovin' Spoonful - entertained the crowd acoustically for two hours because of some band not showing or technical reasons, I forget which, of course.

We walked up the Afton Downs hill and looked out over the English Channel. We saw people hundreds of feet below playing in the cold!! water. With a film crew shooting them. It looked forced. We also saw people fall from the top and bounce, slide and fall down the chalk cliffs. I've no idea what happened to them.

At the end, on Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people started the trek to the ferries. There may have been buses to Cowes, but we heard it was faster to walk the 4.5 mi. To Yarmouth and that's what we did.

I hope I'm in the movie, I was so much older then. I'm younger than that, now :-)

I never get to experience the Isle of Wight or the Woodstock so this is a great way to see it and there's also interviews. You can also see the fans raging against the police. It's a great video... you should see it and experience it for yourself. There are great artist like Hendrix,The Doors, The Who, Joni Mitchell and lot more.

A very entertaining look at naive hippiedom. The glimpses and interviews with the not-so-well-groomed attendees are often hilarious (unintentionally) and sometimes heartbreaking (A man admits to regularly giving his 3 year old son acid and marijuana) The hippyspeak is also very enjoyable. The word "money" is never used--its always "bread, man" etc. The hippies feel that they have an entitlement to free music, (It was only $3 to get in. Boy, hippies were cheap) ,while the promoters claim that they are just trying to break even. Meanwhile some of the artists (Never "musician" or "bands", always the "artists") are not being paid. Tiny Tim wisely demands to be paid up front in cash. The diverging interest set up an interesting backdrop for the music- like when one promoter states that not so many port-o-johns are needed because its a well known fact that everyone gets constipated on vacation. This guy has never been to Mexico. With some exceptions, the music is of the plodding, indulgent, extended jams variety. Thank goodness, punk rock came around and ended people like Emerson Lake and Palmer from doodling on the synthesizer for ten minute stretches. Mix in a hook, ok? Their performance in particular reminded me of Spinal Tap as their pyrotechnics accidentally catches the entire stage on fire. Meanwhile the emcee asks the crowd if there are any fireman out there. We did like Ian Anderson's codpiece, though.

This film chronicles the 1970 Isle of Wight Rock Festival from behind and on front of the scenes. Incredible concert footage of Hendrix and Jim Morrison (both of whom died just after the festival) as well as numerous other pop, folk, and rock artists make this film wonderful just as a concert video. Even more revealing, though, is footage of the festival's production and management, including riots, rebellious patrons, break-ins, and mordant commentary on why rock festivals don't happen anymore. Beautifully paced and edited.

First off, every rock fan must see this film. Other reviewers have touched on the important highlights. What strikes me, here in 2006, is that the film should also be seen by everyone attending the current U. N. conference in NYC. It is the perfect model of the eternal love/hate struggle between the entitled moral front and it's financial base. The promoters of this event seem earnest in their wish to put on a show for the the kids and ultimately have to get in bed with the financial world in order to do it. Otherwise, there would be no Happening. The kids, however, seem to feel that the show should be "on the dole" as some sort of socialist entitlement. A fine idea, except for the fact that The Queen doesn't sponsor Rock concerts. For that, you need Capitalist pigs. Rikki, the most innocent of the promoters, rants on about how the business people "only care about bread man." But, why shouldn't they? They are business people, not rock fans, and are doing what they do to feed their families, stay out of bankruptcy and only incidentally provide Art to the masses. Rikki learns the hard way that the rewards of good intentions are often poxed with hate and misunderstandings. He stands on the stage trying to reason with an unreasonable mass of stoned kids, looking like a Mother trying to tell her infant children to "p... in the toilet." Of course, the kids don't understand and seem to want Rikki's blood. They view him as the mouthpiece of the Capitalist pigs, when all Riki is trying to do, is to pay for the year he spent putting The Happening together. This was not to be. Rikki & Company wound up in Bankruptcy(the reason that the film wasn't released for 27 years), abandoned by the very kids he wished to identify with and undoubtedly, converted from a good intended kid into a total Capitalist pig himself.

If Awareness and Tolerance were the goals of the sixties youth culture, then the Isle of Wight is a testament to the utter failure of that ideal. One can only hope that events of history are not lost on future generations. However, 36 years after 1970... just like 36 years before, Awareness and Tolerance still spring eternal/occasional and in 2006, the history books seem to be gathering more dust then ever. Maybe John Lennon should have sung "Imagine all the people, aware and accepting of the slings, arrows and virtues of both capitalism and socialism." But, that just doesn't roll off the lips as sweetly. Art can turn bitter without a hated, but essential financial plan, and vice versa. ...and the band played on.