How Quickly Things Change
Just been back to the Isle of Wight for family parties and early summer sun. The more time i spend there the more i want to go back. The island's started to really get things moving again with the festivals attracting the young and beautiful, even to come down and live. Talking with family who were around for, and quite involved with the original 68-70 festivals, has revealed how quickly public opinion changes.
On Southern Vectis buses you can see Johnny Rotten's face advertising this years 'Nokia' Isle of Wight festival (The Sex Pistols are headlining). Surprising enough given the shock they caused when they arrived on the music scene but even more surprising when you consider that the same bus company placed an ad in the local paper assuring all customers that their buses had been thoroughly disinfected following their use during the festivals! All this not quite forty years ago!
The shock for that small island community must have been considerable when by some accounts 650,000 people came to Afton Farm (just a mile from my folks place) for the 1970 festival. I remember some fantastic footage of the local jeweller in Freshwater and his daughter talking 25 years after the event. 'Some of them stayed for days, weeks, some of them might still be here, we just don't know!' Like some kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers nightmare the freaks have taken over and made it acceptable for Never mind the Bollocks to adorn the back of our buses!
I suppose that generation grew up, chilled out probably even bought the company, whatever company that might be, and having a bit of fun for a weekend in the summer became thoroughly acceptable rather than rocking the foundations of civilisation. Leonard Cohen's back this year, having to pay the bills because his manager did him over, ending the weekend at the festival Michael Eavis set up in '71 after a bit of island inspiration.
Like anything money plays a part, once they'd got over the shock and repealed a 30 year 'Isle Of Wight Act' that pretty much banned any festivals on the island, the council stood to make a whole load of direct and peripheral profit out of the festivals. Trading on the majestic history of Bob Dylan in '69 and, amongst others, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and Miles Davis in '70, but not run by the original organisers, the 'Nokia' Isle of Wight Festival now sits in a municipal park in the island's capital, Newport. Rock and Roll and and easy nip into town to use a decent loo.
Meanwhile in its fifth year, Bestival, has got really popular really quick. After humble beginnings they've received a license for 40,000 people to squeeze into Robin Hill. Great festival, great line up, but isn't that too many people for a site that size?