Today marks the forty third anniversary of the tail-end of the World-famous 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. Officially the event was to finish on the 30th August, but we learnt, speaking to Chris Weston yesterday (whose photo you see above – yes, he was there, working, and has a grand set of photos to prove it), that it ran on an extra day.
Lots of myths have sprung up about the Festival since, so we were really pleased to bump into Ray Foulk – one of the brothers who put on the original Festivals – on the 40th anniversary of the 1970 event, when Hawkwind held Hawkfest on the Afton site.
Festival facts – from the horse’s mouth
We’ve held this article back, for the weekend, so you can take the time out to listen to an insight into the three years of the Festival – Godshill in 1968; Wootton in 1969 and Afton Downs in 1970 – that you won’t hear anywhere else, like the sites they looked at for the 1970 festival, but had to reject, because of pressure put on the land owners, including threats of physical violence.
Follow this link and have a listen to Ray Foulk on The History of the Isle of Wight Festival
Video footage
If you want some visual stimulation, we’ve put in a video below, which is some footage of The Who playing at the 1969 event.
It starts from someone enjoying themselves, dancing in a way that is not too dissimilar to me, once I get going. Towards the end you also get an idea of the crowd’s appreciation.
