overview

After the fiasco of trying to get in on the Friday, we were tempted to go home and say we’d never come again. However by Sunday we had revised that, instead in full agreement we hope to return to this sunny festival next year.

Day One

Exactly what it is, that this festival has to offer, which makes us feel like that is hard to define. On Friday we queued from the start of The Feeling until nearly the end of Groove Armada, a frustrating and depressing experience, where we got to watch local drunken louts, fighting, littering and trying to sell fake tickets. We did get the occasional glimpse of the big screens and could hear the bands quite well during nearly 2 hours of waiting, including half an hour of being penned into a cul-de-sac where the queues didn’t move at all. By the time we got in we wished like many others who left the queue we’d just gone into Newport and tried again on the Saturday. Four people to wrist band the huge queue was beyond a joke, worsened by the large number of fake tickets in circulation. By the end the relief or finally getting in managed to slake my bubbling anger at being treated so badly.



It’s a good job we’d been before because entry to the arena was next to the large fun fair with the stage in front of us and the edges flanked by stalls, to a newbie, it would look like this was all there was to the festival. However further down the hill a less obvious exit beside the ring of festival flags led to Strawberry Fields.

Strawberry Fields is for me the Isle Of Wight festival, it’s where the vibe is, where you can chat happily to strangers, buy drinks without tokens, enjoy wandering performers (although not many this year), play poi, enjoy the site art like a giant wicker statue of Jimi Hendrix, go shopping, boogie to DJs in The B Bar or the Ciderhouse or watch bands at Hipshaker or my personal favourite The Bandstand. But it’s not obvious to those day visitors entering the site that it’s there and had we not known, I think after a fairly plodding set by Snow Patrol, we’d have been very disappointed, with the queuing and missing most of the acts and in my opinion I felt the vibe at the end of Groove Armada would have made them better headliners.

Day Two
Anyway day two, was much easier, no queues, time to spend wandering Strawberry Fields and enjoying the festival’s marvellous sunshine, this festival really has the best weather of any festival I’ve ever been to. Ignoring the pull of the main stage for the smaller acts on the bandstand. I spent the day watching kids run around playing Star Wars with plastic light sabres, played a bit of footie with randoms, was entertained by jugglers, poi dancers, strange star shapes. I went visiting Oxfam’s Beats and Treats tent and drank cider rather than the standard drink that is supposed to pass for lager at a reasonable (I suppose) £3.



As the sun beat down I spent my time having a chat to friends, giving Carbon/Silicon, made up of legends Mick Jones of The Clash and Tony James of Generation X a bit of a listen and avoiding Amy Winehouse for local heroes Preacher Joe and their brand of Black Crowes Inspired rock at the Bandstand. Then I was delighted to see Shitdisco play on a small stage a scorchingly good set and with the exception of The Stones, this was the highlight of the performances that weekend.

Hunger, meant I went in search of food, much of it was expensive with main meals about £6 but there were some bargains to be had, cheap pies and local pizza with salad for the half the price if you hunted.

At five the Red Arrows stunned crowds with a great display over the festival, with a musical soundtrack and commentary from the main stage, a spectacular exhibition of flying which had the crowd give them a standing ovation.



Returning to Hipshaker, playing classic old school dance anthems, we sat in the fold up chairs at a table outside and chilled, soaking up the happy environment here until local boys The Bees turned up to play a fantastic set that had us leave grinning, this was a real festival experience.

Back to the main stage that had a rather wiped looking crowd who it appeared hadn’t moved all day, and were now feeling the effects of the heat we wigged out to Kasabian, who were terrific. While numbers went from busy to packed.



Then came headliners Muse, who personally I’m not keen on but their set was mighty impressive, very visual and despite plinking keyboard, screechy guitar and waily voice, the crowd made it an enjoyable climax to the day. Downsides were the toilets had become worse than atrocious and some parts of the arena were plunged into darkness with a power failure. But pyrotechnics and a visual feast and a sultry night had us leaving the site with smiles on our faces.

Day Three
More sun and by now the crowds are smiling and even the huge queues at the cash machines are in high spirits. Brunch off site (well it saves more money for cider) means we arrive a little late, despite our plan to spend the day at the main stage watching all the acts. Strawberry Fields has distracted us from far too many of the acts on offer.

The vibe at the main stage is lovely, I have to say although I’m a football fan, the lack of a mass of football fanatics creates a much happier vibe, security are still really heavy on the gates, but politeness means we have no problems. All girl band The Hedrons wake us up and lead singer Tippi is the first band to use the huge walkway extending into the crowd, which has appeared over night.



Country Joe tries for another World Record by having as many people as possible yell “Fuck”. Mel C’s last song with a dance beat shows us she still has potential, and James Morrison gives us an incredibly passionate and vibrant performance. The Fratellis are rather disappointing their long set drags a little compared to the last time I saw them last year at Reading Festival. Paolo Nutini has the crowd in the palm of his hand and sings his way through an upbeat set which is extremely well received.

Keane despite the décor on stage have me running for Krafty Kuts’ set at The Ciderhouse, which is a dance feast before the main event – The Rolling Stones, the atmosphere is electric, the crowd mammoth (surely more than 60,000?) and the dinosaurs are superb, the crowd impressive, and Mick is clearly relishing the atmosphere, saying he loves playing festivals and saying the band would like to do more (fingers crossed). Duets with Amy Winehouse and a rather starstruck Paolo Nutini added to the performance by the rock legends.


One of my top five gigs I’ve experienced in twenty years! When the drum kit began to move and then the band were sailing down the runway through the crowd, we just erupted, that takes some beating. A brilliant finale of fireworks sets off a chorus of car alarms and as we head away through the ranks of knock off shirt sellers, drastically reducing the prices the further away from Seaclose we get, everyone is smiling.


It’s been a festival with its ups and downs but has come up trumps. Once inside the vibe was happy and we saw no trouble at all, I didn’t even notice the police presence. How on earth can they match the headliners next year? Effectively three festivals in one, the arena, Strawberry Fields and the campsite – I think if we’d just experienced the first we’d have been disappointed but all three combine to make this much more of a true festival than its contemporaries. If you’re coming to Isle of Wight make sure you sample all of it and you won’t be disappointed, but take plenty of money as it’s fairly expensive and be aware the security are really tough.

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