IOW 06.04

The Isle Of Wight Rock Festival

This was Nokia's first big sponsored rock festival, and next year, they
intend to make it better. We hope.

I travelled with my girlfriend from sunny Scotland to an even sunnier,
hotter England, Southampton to be precise, via a scheduled flight on BA
City Express. Flight time was an hour and ten minutes and this was my
girlfriend's first air flight. We had breakfast given to us on the
plane, but my girlfriend wasnt hungry and I stopped myself from asking
her to take one anyway so I could eat it. The sausage and scambled egg
was nice. So, there we are in Southampton, it's about 100 Fahrenheit in
the shade and I am sure the tarmac was melting. We stood around while I
had a smoke then tried to get a cab. The word from the desk was it
would be a twenty five minute wait and the fare would be a lot more
than a tenner. My girlfriend, Natti, suggested that we get the train
from Parkway to Central and then get a bus or a cab from there to the
ferry. I drew out some money and we got the train. The fare was ?4.40,
singles, and the journey time was about ten minutes. Some dudes in red
thought my Irish Rfu sweater was cool. We got a bus with some other
dude and his squeeze to the ferry terminal. The dude had a ruck sack
full of beer while his girlfriend had to carry the tent, both their
clothes, and probably the dude's stash. At the ferry terminal I
demanded to know the first ferry out to the Isle of Wight, and was told
it was 1pm. It was a car ferry. Except there was a ferry at 12.30. Hmm,
puzzling, turns out the 12.30 sailed from Terminal 2 (the hi-speed one)
so we got the 1pm ferry. The ferry was a bit slow and took an hour. We
had a drink and Natti fell asleep for a while during which time I had a
smoke on the upstairs deck in the wind and read some more of Sonny
Barger's book about Hell's Angels.

At the East Cowes end we got a bus (?5 return) along with several other
people, some were Manics fans. You could tell they were because one of
them looked like Ronald McDonald and another two looked like
Richey.

The field was a fair old trot from the bus. We found a spot three
fields away and spent an hour putting up the tent. Next time, I will
put the tent pegs in first so that the tent doesn't blow away.

We chilled out for a long while as there were no bands playing on
Thursday night. I bought us some takeaways, a hat for Natti and a hat
for myself. It was very hot.

The following day we had breakfast and then I took a dump in the
shitters placed two fields away. There were no shitters in our field.
It was very very hot, and I chose to cook myself in a light coating of
suntan lotion till golden brown before we trudged two miles to the
Arena. At the gate were a 1000 angry people demanding that they be let
in to see the Super Furry Animals NOW. The SFA finished their set
before we got in. It could have turned nasty but the crowd were
suffering from sun stroke so it didnt.

It got cold rather quickly that evening (Friday) so I bought Natti a
blue blanket to keep her warm and a brown fleece for myself. We saw the
Stereophonics having missed every other band. Kelly Jones looked like
Perry Farrell, right down to the hat and the flares. He sang in his
nasally Welsh voice for a long long time, then we had some Pimms.

Returning to the tent involved another two mile trek and no, we could
not go back the way we had come, and there were no lights. We had a
torch. I had a smoke at the tent while Natti read Harry Potter. We fell
asleep and it was very cold outside. We had this pee cup from a water
bottle and on Friday I used it several times, to the point where my pee
turned to water. Natti dozed off.

Saturday was very hot. I climbed out the tent and a while later after
some fried food, we sat on the mat and sun bathed for the morning. I
wore my Saltire shorts. Off to the bands again. This time they had the
entrance better organized and since we had our wrist bands it was a lot
quicker getting in. The first band we saw was STEVE HARLEY and they
were good. The stand out song was Come Up And See Me but the one about
Sebastian was five minutes too long. We had some food and then water,
then wormed our way to near the front to see BRITISH SEA POWER. This
band hadn't made much impression on me before but I now think they are
ok, and they sound like Joy Division meets the Psychedelic Furs. Some
good songs and the finale was a big brown bear on stage. The next band
up were ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE: this band had a few good songs and fitted
in well with the indie pop nature of some of the acts. They did a new
song which worked well, and my interest stems from the fact that these
dudes can actually play. Then there was the STANDS who started like the
Byrds but then spliffed out into Hippie Prog Blues and my boredom
threshold was exceeded rapidly. Natti legged it off to get water and
rang me to say the STANDS were shite and she wanted to have a look
round the arena. We wandered the stalls to JET and then zoomed back for
the Manics. The MANICS rocked. They did three new songs of which the
only title I can remember was Empty Souls, and also favourites like You
Love Us, and Motorcycle Emptiness and Little Baby Nothing from
Generation Terrorists; From Despair To Where from Gold Against the
Soul; Yes (first time ever), Faster from the Holy Bible; Elvis
Inpersonator, Blackpool Pier.. Australia.. A Design For Life from
Everything Must Go; If You Tolerate This, You Stole The Sun, No Surface
All Feeling from This Is My Truth...; Ocean Spray from Know Your Enemy;
the three new songs. (See Natti's entry for more comprehensive notes)
from the new album, but no covers. The WHO rounded off the evening with
I Cant Explain, Substitute, Anyway - Anyhow - Anywhere and a host of
favourites. Daltrey was looking good for his extreme age (in Rock
terms) and Townshend introduced his brother on Rhythm Guitar. We
watched half of the set then went to get food and water. We watched the
rest of the WHO's set from the Crepe area. They encored with Magic Bus
and not The Kids Are Alright.

I wore my brown fleece on the trek back and we fell asleep with ears
ringing to Substitute my Coke For Gin.

Sunday was HOT. I had slept in my fleece and woke up half baked, and
sweaty. I let the spiders out and then ate a banana, before going to
the toliet. Natti read a lot of Harry Potter and had to be prised away
from the book. We now had her blanket on the tent floor. Sunday Natti
wore her special tee shirt. Back to the Arena.

We got there mid afternoon and saw SUZANNE VEGA on stage (via the Big
Screen) but the main story was the sheer number of England fans
congregating to watch the game. Some were so drunk they were incapable
of speaking normally being reduced to cries of "Engerland!!!" and then
vomiting. After SUZANNE VEGA (who is quite unattractive), the DELAYS.
This band is local (Southampton based) and while I like this band a
lot, the sound was crappy and I couldnt really make out any of the
guitar melodies. SNOW PATROL turned in a pedestrian performance and
apart from the singles their set was forgettable. Sorry lads, but this
is a festival not a second string gig. The CHARLATANS performed their
greatest hits. Again, nothing particualrly memorable. Apart from there
biggest hit, which I know was popular with the crowd. The football had
started already at the crepe end screen. England scored while Natti and
I hid behind the main generators. It was in the shade. Then the French
equalised in the last few minutes of the game and went one ahead
following a penalty in injury time. The England fans looked like
somebody had died. This was the most watched match ever (30,000,000
estimated viewers). I had a good laugh.

BOWIE emerged from his cocoon at 10pm and ignored the doldrums of the
England match with a fiery set opening with Rebel Rebel and then
playing a selection of his hits. Stand outs were Heroes, China Girl,
and Ashes To Ashes. He did three songs in his encore, including
Suffragette City, Ziggy Stardust.

We trudged back to the tent and lay around for a while drinking before
falling asleep.

Worth it? Yes
Do It Again? Maybe
Manics? Superb as always, and Nicky was wearing a 63 baseball jacket
sporting a cheap hair cut and beard, the MSP new direction?