Saturday overview

Saturday starts with a cloudy morning, well there's a few clouds and so it's a cooler start to proceedings. Kosmik Debris open the morning followed by Black Stone Cherry who rouse the arriving crowd with a rendition of Jimi Hendrix's 'Voodoo Chile'.

The wise are making the morning walk into Newport for their breakfasts saving the expense of a meal on site, and there's locals out in nearly every garden selling their wares to turn a quick profit, in fact the whole area seems to be happy to have festival goers around so they can boost their income. There's money to be made on every corner.

The afternoon starts with One Night Only who look incredibly youthful, they play well and their hit 'Just For Tonight' has the crowd joining in. We stop to listen before walking around the markets and Strawberry Fields relaxing in the rum bar for a while, taking a look at the kids area already quite busy and catch a couple of bands on the bandstand. The arena is busy, strewn with festival goers laid out for a day in the sun.

The arena is not packed and we're able to get a good vantage point for Arthur, a young lad, who as a winner in the Guitar Hero competition, he gets to show off his talent. strutting his stuff Angus style across the main stage, plastic guitar behind his head and hitting every note on expert level.



The crowd are a colourful bunch with many opting to wear various degrees of fancy dress costumes, the sun tan lotion is being liberally applied, there's the smell of fish and chips, and the bars are doing a good trade.

Next up is The Cribs and their raucous punk rock, it's not particularly impressive, so we decide to break for lunch in the shade of nearby trees and listen to a little of Gundogs on the second stage whilst kids clamber in to bins for empty cups – the recycle exchange offer of 10p a cup means the site is kept wonderfully clean, by kids scavenging for cash.

Kate Nash opens up with a funked up version of 'I just want your Kiss' it's a rock version. Her playing is punctuated by the heavy bass and guitar laden delivery continues, she's obviously decided to rock it up for the IOW. The first few notes of 'Foundations' get a cheer, overall however she seems a bit drawn out.



Next up are two excellent festival bands with a number of well known tunes, The Enemy and The Zutons both put on excellent shows, I'm surprised just how much material from both bands I knew. The latter had the whole crowd waving their arms from side to side in the sunshine, great stuff.

Just before the narrow entrance to Strawberry fields in the main arena we discover the BT Chill Zone, with a plethora of flat screens, showing the main stage acts, the Euro 2008 football, and Pokemon. Around the edge of the hard floored area behind the many sofas were computers and phone points offering free broadband and phone calls. Venturing out the other side revealed a bar, a wooden veranda, more seating and a garden with deck chairs overlooking the boats on the river. it was a rather idyllic escape from the colour and noise of the festival – we chilled.



Meanwhile Iggy Pop was in full flow, bouncing off the stage and into the audience, boy does he have energy. We left him to it and walked up to the Big Top to watch a terrific performance by Ida Maria, with an ever growing crowd enjoying their songs. 'Queen Of The World' even gets people singing, although my enjoyment of it is cut short, my daughter has developed a gambling habit at one of the amusements which has lots of kids trying to win large soft toys, she soon has parted with her spending money, and is dejected.



Cheered by a hot chocolate, and enough paper cups scrounged to recoup some of her losses we head back for Ian Brown, quite missing The Bees in Hipshaker, and the Sugababes who pack out not only the tent but the whole field, quite some achievement. Yesterday the festival seemed on full tilt to get drunk, today it's taking it more easy and the vibe is relaxed, and friendly.

Monkeyman is a little disappointing the rumours of Stone Roses tracks unfounded and he seems annoyed that “The best band in the world” aren't getting as much adulation as he feels it should have. 'F.E.A.R.' is the best track of the night, and it's a pleasant set of hits, if slightly pedestrian for Brown.


Johnny Rotten and co. however are anything but, it's a brilliantly lively headline performance, with Rotten as acerbic as ever, skinny bands, teenagers, sound engineers, and politicians all get a tongue lashing. The songs fly by, and the mosh pit has steam rising from it. They finish with an extended version of 'Anarchy In The UK' with the crowd yelling it back to a satisfied looking Rotten. The encore is a surprise, a rendition of Hawkwind's 'Silver Machine' with Rotten crowbarring in "I got a Combine Harvester" somehow.

We're more than ready for the journey home, come the end of another great day at the Isle Of Wight, with the extra stage, and more stuff on site, more colour and a wide age range, the festival has really felt like a proper festival today, it's been one of the best days I've experienced at the island festival, and I haven't even been on the ferris wheel, yet.

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