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Published: October 10th 2007
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The Isle of Wight Festival is a three day camping festival located funnily enough in the Isle of Wight.
This was my first trip to IoW and we picked the highlight of the summer weather to spend it there. It was a tube / train / hovercraft / bus trip there which took about 3hours all up from home to campsite. The hovercraft was great. I'd never been on one before and it's quite freaky. It's not really that noisy and it was a smooth trip, right from the sandy shores of Portsmouth to Ryde on Isle of Wight. Have to admit though, I spent the whole trip humming 'I've got a ticket to Ryde' 😊
It was a fairly painless trip even though we were lugging a fair amount of luggage. There were 3 of us: me, Paul, and Duncan. And between us we had 2 tents, a blow-up bed, all the comforts of camping, alcohol, wet weather gear, and much more.
We arrived Thursday afternoon the day before the festival was due to start, and already there were thousands of people there. There were tents for miles. It was an amazing sight. We passed into the
grounds, got our festival bracelets, and then walked across several paddocks of tents till we came across a clear site. Our new home for the next few days.
After setting up camp and meeting the neighbours - a couple of Scottish guys who look like they'd settled down already into a steady pattern of drinking - we headed back into the main area to check out what was happening. Although there were around 60,000 people at the festival it never at any time felt too packed. The queues to get into the actual festival areas everyday were fairly long due to the security (you couldn't even take water in), but other than that it was pretty relaxing. There were food stalls everywhere and there was even a good selection of healthy food. Just perfect to wash down with a few beers :-)
We grabbed some food and the boys grabbed a slab of beer (yeah warm Carlton) and we had a picnic on the grass and just laid back and people-watched. The festival hadn't really started yet so everyone was still fresh and relatively washed. Three days of heat, music, and dancing should change that :-) We finished
the night with a few beers and wines at the camp before crashing ready for the start of the festivities the next day.
It was a really warm day Friday, so we didn't sleep in much as the tent got too hot. We managed to get some water for our tent wash and grabbed a quick brekkie. The festival didn't start till the afternoon so we walked into town to get some lunch. It was only about a 1/2hr walk and we managed to find a nice pub which was filled to the brim with festival-bracelet-wearing people.
On the way back we passed a stall selling beer. There was a bloke passed out in front of it. The music hadn't event started!!
The first day was briliiant. It was a beautiful warm sunny day and a great lineup of Koopa, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Feeling, Groove Armada, and Snow Patrol. It was the first time I'd listened to the Feeling and I reallly like them. Infact I went out and bought their album after the festival. They are a great live band. Snow Patrol played after the sun went down and it was a great show
and I'll definitely have to spend more time listening to them now.
The crowd were all good value and in great spirits. It was pretty packed up the front but we stayed up there for the Feeling then moved back during Groove Armada (mainly cos we lost each other and had stupidly made our meeting point at the back of the festival). But it was still good vibes near the back and like I said, Snow Patrol really put it on for us.
Saturday morning was very warm again. I was feeling a bit crook so just slept by the tent while the boys went into town for breakfast. A whole pile of pain killers later, I was back into the action and we went back to the festival arena for another wicked day which included Donovan, Amy Winehouse (what a fantastic backing band she has, specially the sexy dancers!!), Ash, Kasabian, and Muse.
Mid afternoon the Red Arrows flew over to give us a wicked show. The sky was a clear blue and the Red Arrows left their trails of red, white, and blue high above us.
The highlights besides the Red Arrows (sorry greenies)
was definitely Kasabian and Muse. Muse as per their reputation were unbelievable live and have definitely cemented themselves as a big favourite for me. Kasabian though, I felt were the band of the night. The just blew me away and put on an amazing show. That's another album to get :-)
We were all really knackered by the end of Muse. It was only just after midnight, but a whole day of partying put us to bed early.
Sunday morning was thankfully a bit cooler and we slept in a little later. We went back into town for breakfast again. It's nice to get out of the camping grounds and into a more civilised area. Me and Duncan were looking a little worse for wear not having had any showers for 3 days while enjoying all the dancing, music and warm weather. Paul, the sly one, had been sneaking back to the camp during the day for showers. Smarty pants that he is!
We got back to the festival in time for todays lineup which included James Morrison, Paolo Nutini, the Fratellis, Keane, and of course the Rolling Stones. Me and Paul sneaked off in the early
afternoon to catch a shower while everyone else was at the festival. Bit of a cop-out but you start to feel really manky after 3 days no shower. To top it off, some of the crowd were throwing cups around with unknown substances, so the need for the shower was strong. The feeble sprinkle that came out of the shower head was one of my best showers ever!! It felt really good.
We headed back to the grounds in time to catch Paolo Nutini. He was fantastic. I'd not heard of him before, but really loved his stuff. I reckon iTunes should sponsor the festivals as they made enough money out of me after the events 😊
The Fratellis were up next (very good) then Keane.
Finally it was Rolling Stones turn. We were a wee bit back from the stage, but had moved close to the runway that had been built coming up through the crowd in the hope that Mick J might come up and visit us. What a good move. It wasn't just Mick that came up, it was the whole stage! It lifted up and moved through the crowd to within a few
The Feeling
I went out and bought their album after this. They were really good. metres of us. We had the best view. Unbelievable. Words can't describe the buzz. We totally rocked out. They played lots of their well known tunes, plus a few I hadn't heard before. I really loved it and would gladly go see them again anyday. They've got an awful lot of energy for old fullas.
The festival finished with a finale of fireworks. The dance tents and fair ground rides carried on until the wee hours of the night.
The next morning we had to pack up and head back home. We were ready for it by then but we'd had the most amazing weekend!
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