Isle of Wight Festival 1970

Fairfield Parlour / Isle of Wight Festival 1970

Background:

I suppose this story really began one foggy night in March `64. By that time I`d ditched the Rocker uniform of greasy leather jacket, greasy hair and unwashed greasy jeans. I was now kitted out in my new Mod uniform: voluminous US Army parka, Fred Perry shirt, orange dyed slacks that appeared to have had an argument with my spotless Hush Puppies -- and I was speeding towards Acton on my resprayed Lambretta 125. Sharp wasn`t the word for it; I was current fashion personified. Pete the Mod.

I`d been invited by a work colleague, Eddie Pumer -- he of the fake-suede driving coat with the fake fur collar -- to join his band. And so my life story began, crowing out Stones` covers and R `n B standards in youth clubs and dingy dives. We were The Sidekicks. But Ed and I soon found a passion for song-writing and we consigned to the musical waste bin the blues stuff and reinvented ourselves as The Key. We were driven, focused, we had a goal: a recording contract. So we kept writing and eventually through a series of detours, tangents, blind alleys and bear-pits found ourselves signing a contract with Philips` newish label, Fontana. It was that magical summer of 1967.

We became Kaleidoscope. We released two albums, `Tangerine Dream` and `Faintly Blowing` and many singles. For a brief moment we became, if not the darlings, then certainly the bedfellows of the blossoming psychedelic movement that had grabbed the music industry by its scrawny neck and stuck a flower in its ear.

But psychedelia was a sky rocket: bright and beautiful and blinding for a moment of time, quickly fading, coming down to earth with a thump. We moved on. We became Fairfield Parlour. And we were destined to become for a brief moment, if not the darlings, then certainly the bedfellows of the purplish progressive movement that had grabbed the music industry by its scrawny neck and sung a mellotron-accompanied story into its ear.

We released our `debut` single, `Bordeaux Rose` followed by the album, `From Home to Home.`

In May and June of 1970 David Symonds -- our ex-Radio 1 DJ manager -- had extensive talks with the Foulk brothers. Dave pulled off an amazing coup. Not only did he secure the band a place on the bill at the upcoming Isle of Wight Festival on the Friday, but talked the two wily brothers into agreeing that we should write and record a song that would be released as a single under the banner: The Official Isle of Wight Festival Song 1970. They further agreed that the song would be played between every act. This massive publicity during the weekend festival, together with the expected heavy radio airplay, would at last secure the band its long overdue first hit. Legal representatives drew up a contract which was duly signed by both parties.

In June Ed and I wrote the song: `Let the world wash in.`

Ed and I always wrote using the same formula. I wrote the words, he wrote the music. Writing a song to order is more difficult than simply grabbing inspiration out of the air and turning it into a lyric. And inspiration, by definition, can`t be produced on demand. That ain`t how it works. Inspiration`s favourite trick is to insinuate itself into your thoughts just as you are about to fall asleep in bed. A word or a line or two will form in your mind, drifting in and out of your consciousness as you are about to take that wonderful step into sleep. But, aware of these lines, you know that if ignored they will simply disappear; in the morning they will be gone. So you struggle back from Nodland, scrabble around for a pen and paper, scratch the words out -- and crash back to bed. Sun up, bleary eyes, full bladder, sandpaper mouth, roaring tinnitus, you squint at the words; usually crap, sometimes inspired.

With the festival song I had to focus very clearly on the imagined event. I`d not been to an open-air summer festival before. Blimey, we weren`t even hippies, not in the true sense of the word; not many people were. Free-living, free-thinking, earth-wandering, stargazing souls who were not tied to anyone they didn`t want to be tied to, who despised money and authority and possessions -- who loved children and dogs and matted hair and brightly coloured clothes and flowers and grass and only wanted peace, man. I had to get inside their skin, I had to put myself in that Vectis field, I had to literally close my eyes and be at the festival, be a hippy in my head. Actually, it was quite nice in there. And this is what I saw on my head-trip into the near future:

Stepping through the hands my eyes adjusting to the light

I find no need of words and I notice that you feel the same

Space between the sky is taken up with something else

We feel each other perfectly in company again

Nothing moves and yet there`s movement everywhere; I know it

Could we all be part of something else or something part of us

And let the world wash in -- Let it pour over and over

An island is no island it is just a stepping stone

There are some things that can be done almost quietly

Let them tell you: you are you, for that is true, and yet you know

We stand within the circle and together we shall be...

And let the world wash in -- Let it pour over and over

Let`s hope the morning never comes; we`ll sit around your leather drum

The night will be a curtain and we`ll gather in its wings

But now my head is swimming it is spinning with the dawn

That washes in across the sky and I smile as we all sing:

And let the world wash in -- Let it pour over and over

As always, the lyrics would then be passed to Ed for him to work his special magic. And, boy, was he a wonderful magician when it came to transforming my offerings into fully-formed, living and breathing songs. There is a special bond between co-writers when the collaboration is working. Ed seemed to know intuitively exactly what I was thinking and feeling when I wrote the words for our songs. That was certainly the case with the festival song. He nailed it.

After further talks with the record company, we signed a short time-lease deal retaining ownership with an agreement for them to release the single in a souvenir bag featuring David Fairbrother-Roe`s fabulous festival logo of the rampant drummer, his sticks raised in mid-bash.

July 13th: We cut a demo of the track at Livingstone Studios in Barnet. Our drummer, Dan Bridgman, had left his Birmingham hospital bed the night before to play on the track. Dan had suffered a massive trapped-nerve-in-the-spine-scream-like-a-banshee incident some months before after a gig at Mothers. He attended the demo session still on crutches, sporting an eighteen inch `zipper` down his back where the surgeons had sliced him open. But he still played with all the skill and enthusiasm we came to expect from this musical trooper. The following week Dave played the demo to the Philips suits and Raymond Foulk and associates were very pleased to proceed, more than happy with the song.

July 22 - 24th: Two midnight-to-dawn sessions at Sound Techniques Studios in Chelsea recording the A and B sides. One of my fondest memories of those days is emerging from the shadows of the studio into a bright new morning in a charming Chelsea street, the dawn sun climbing the rooftops, the smell of freshly-baked bread from the shop opposite wafting aromatically through the still air -- the single in the can and ready to go, the most exciting and possibly most important gig of our lives just four weeks away.

August 16 - 22nd: Knowing that our reputation could be made or ruined by our 45 minute performance at the festival, we embarked on a solid week of all-day rehearsals. The chosen venue: a pig farm in Woking. OK, it was never easy to find rehearsal facilities where you could play at full volume without terrifying the neighbours and rattling the budgies in their cages, but a pig farm? Fortunately for us no poor doomed-to-a-short-life-and-a-quick-drive-to-the-slaughterhouse pig had yet lived its imprisoned existence in the building. One hundred feet long, twenty feet wide, solid concrete, tin roof, 100 degrees in the shade. We set up and stripped off.

The song choice was crucial. We quickly agreed that our heavier hang-on-to-the-microphone-stand-and-go sort of stuff would look ridiculous mid-afternoon on acres of untrodden stage in front of an unwarmed-up audience. We plumbed for the more bucolic flutey floaty songs, many taken from our album, `From Home to Home.` We put together a balanced set of sensitive songs and honed them into perfect shape. It was essential that timing was clock-sharp; we had forty-five minutes and knew that running over would not be acceptable. With this in mind we played the agreed set over and over, Dave poised with stop-watch like a sports coach, growling like a sore-headed bear when a solo strayed into uncharted territory, grinning like that sweaty cat from Cheshire when we broke the finishing-line tape bang on time. Each night we drove home, our ears ringing alarmingly.

August 21st: Whilst we were damaging our hearing in a concrete shed in Surrey, `Let the world wash in` was released to a flurry of press interest. In a moment of unprecedented madness -- brought on by a surfeit of medication or perhaps being dropped on his blonde bonce when he was a kid or simply losing the tightly-written plot -- Dave made an autonomous decision to release the record under an assumed name: I Luv Wight. Even the writers` names were fictitious: Newnes and Baker. It seemed totally mad to us at the time -- and it seems totally mad to me now sat in my bath-chair in this lovely retirement home overlooking Tescos. Why the mystery? Why almost disown what could be one of the most important releases of the summer? Budda only knows. At the time Dave expected there to be an excited wave of expectation washing through the music industry offices: "Who is that band?" "Wow -- what an important assignment to get. Their manager must be a genius." "Who was able to write such an important song?" In fact there was no mystery because the song was published by our own company, Our Songs Ltd -- and, hey! It sounded just like that new band... Whazzanames? Oh, yea, Fairfield Parlour. It was just plain stupid. Ed and I were deprived of the kudos of having written the song and the band appeared to be hiding behind a name a sixth-former could have concocted after a half of shandy. But heads and brick walls don`t go well together.

That aside, the press were generally on side, most predicting a massive summer hit after its expected extensive airing at the festival. Ed and I had constructed the song with the expectation that after a few plays the crowd would join in. It was easy enough to latch onto the chorus: "Let the world wash in -- let it pour over and over..." The thought of this kept me awake at night. The song-writer`s ultimate dream, his song sung by thousands. Insomnia, insomnia, wherefore art thou, insomnia?

The Festival:

Tuesday August 25th: We loaded the trusty off-off-white Transit van. Actually it wasn`t trusty at all; it was a right bastard of a Transit van, breaking down constantly, leaving us stranded at the side of the M1 or country roads in the rain in the mud in the lurch. Our roadies, Ian and Ray, were driving down in the van with the guitars and other equipment and some band members whilst the rest of us were travelling in style in a hired Ford Cortina. Some failed sales rep had probably had to hand in his car keys after a lousy month`s figures and the car had been bequeathed to a hire company. Now here we were, a scruffy bunch of musicians and their equally scruffy manager -- and my beautiful PreRaphaelite girlfriend, Janet, along for the ride -- off on the adventure of a lifetime. The hazy horizon of London was soon disappearing in the rear-view mirror as we all headed south.

The Isle of Wight is an odd sort of place. Only five miles as the Red Funnel flys from Portsmouth it is a world away in atmosphere from hectic, crowded England. Cliché alert! Stepping ashore is like stepping back in time. After a pleasant wind-swept ferry trip you find yourself calming down, coming down, as the salty air suffuses your lungs and the Ryde roofscape hoves into view.

At the dockside we saw our first poster for the festival. The drummer boy was still frozen mid-thump but iconic all the same. Then we noticed that Fairfield Parlour were not listed for the Friday line-up. We ranted together for five minutes, but the anger and frustration was not dissipated in this young man`s confused mind. Why? What? Who? I felt like head-butting the bloody poster. But life ain`t fair. I tried to stay focused. But something had been planted in my brain, a malevolent parasitic worm that began gnawing away at my equilibrium. It was an inauspicious beginning to our sojourn to this speck of English soil floating in its cold choppy Channel.

We drove the few miles to the Claredon Hotel in Shanklin. Told that the cost of the hotel would be deducted from our performance fee I decided that my girlfriend and I would sleep in the car for the duration. I was broke; we all were. The money was more important than our comfort. And -- hey! -- it was a great August, it would be warm, sultry nights ahead for us.

The hotel was run by an old salty seadog with the unlikely moniker of Herbie Snowball. He immediately informed us that he`d had a hand in inventing the hovercraft -- and to prove it he directed us to a photo of the same hanging proudly on the wall behind the bar. I think someone actually uttered the phrase, "Well, shiver me timbers!"

While everyone else was shown to their rooms, the squaw and I motored off to a quiet field and grabbed fifty winks in preparation for the test of endurance that we suspected lay ahead. The roads were alive with people: Hells Angels careening around corners at sound barrier-busting speeds on black oily monster bikes; fresh-faced school kids wearing freshly ironed bell-bottom jeans, new bandanas and beads, carrying bedrolls and bags of tinned beans; authentic Sixties hippies who hadn`t seen a bath or a wage packet in half a decade, children on their shoulders, packs of half-starved dogs at their sandaled heels, thin joints dangling from thin lips; bemused and horrified locals, gaping mouths catching flies as they stood beside the roads watching the circus come to town. And policemen observing professionally with apprehensive smiles on their white faces and sweat staining their starched shirts.

We pulled in, dropped out and slept.

Wednesday 26th August: We awoke in the rep`s cream Cortina. It was bloody cold. The windows were running with condensation. Everything was damp. I had a stiff neck. A headache. A creaking back. Rictus Spineaticus had kicked in. What a night. But it was free.

We drove the couple of miles to the hotel. The band and it`s little entourage were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and all wore smug little smiles when they saw us drag ourselves into the dining room where they were all enjoying their full-on English breakfast. We`d had a strawberry Mivvi and a packet of Smiths crisps. And the salt in its blue wrapper was missing. I complained at the local post office store where we`d bought the crisps and was told to go back to the hole I`d crawled out of. Love and peace and a postmaster with a slavering terrier on a leash.

Dave decided that we should set up the gear in a back room and rehearse all day. The roadies set up the gear and we played table tennis until lunch. In the afternoon we commandeered Captain Snowball`s stock of hire bicycles and behaved like a bunch of schoolboys, only coming in to rehearse when Daddy Dave told us off. Later he suggested we drive over to the festival site to see what was going on. This was vetoed in favour of a band versus roadie - manager table tennis tournament.

Thursday 27th August: Another near-sleepless night in a damp ice-box. A hazy promising dawn. We awoke to the sound of feet. Outside the road beyond our cosy lay-by was alive with people. They walked in ragged lines into the distance, the rising sun casting their shadows behind them. Some had cheap acoustic guitars slung over their shoulders, others carried tents and sleeping bags. Some were breaking bread and handing it to friends, others drinking deep from pint bottles of milk. Children skipped along in bright clothes like trainee Red Indians. One youth went by with a small table upturned on his head, a chair under his arm. We could hear someone singing. The hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting.

Whip-cracking Dave herded us into the back room for a compulsory morning rehearsal. We ran through the set twice, confident that our timing was now spot on. Herbie The Snowball scratched his wizened white beardy old chin, watching from the door. He nodded quietly when we finished and scooted off to his bar duties.

Late afternoon, with the sun still high in the sky, the temperature in the eighties, we all drove down to the beach. We sat, fully-clothed in the sand and watched the British holiday-maker at play. This was the species we had memorably parodied on our first album, `Tangerine Dream` on the cheerful ditty, `Holiday Maker.` We were the only long-haired bunch of scruffs on that area of the beach. Bikini-clad girls toasted themselves in oil on bright blankets. Youths charged around after wayward plastic footballs. Mothers fussed over toddlers with ice-cream painted faces. Fathers slept or rolled up their trousers and braved the always-cold English sea. We sat and observed with self-satisfied mirth. We were different: we existed outside of all this mundane activity. We didn`t need two precious weeks off work to rush to the coast for a moment of freedom. We were free by nature. We were free in body and spirit. And we were broke and bloody hot in our fancy clobber and desperate and lost and searching for something always out of reach and about to tackle the biggest scariest gig of our lives. At that moment all I wanted to do was swap places with that guy standing in the kiddy-sized waves with his wet trousers and the big smile on his face.

That evening we were all sat in the salubrious TV lounge at the Clarendon Hotel: a side room with over-stuffed sofas that had been fashionable between the wars, a shredded bile-green carpet and a black and white television balanced on a stylish Fablon-coated table. We were on the hard stuff: big chipped mugs of creosote-coloured tea. Dave suggested we watch the news to see if the festival got a mention. Second item: "The IRA announced today that in protest at the continued presence of British troops in Belfast they will shoot the first group to appear at the Isle of Wight Festival tomorrow."

"Who is the first group on stage tomorrow, Dave?"

"You are."

Friday 28th August: The sun also rises. The apre-breakfast discussion was subdued. Even the normally-ebullient Dave was reduced to reassuring nodding mode. Our bassist, Steve Clark, he of the nervous laugh and nervous trembling leg, was unusually still; not at peace within himself, more frozen with apprehension. Eddie Pumer -- my writer-brother, guitarist -- avoided my eyes. We dared not look at each-other for fear of what we might glimpse in there. Only Dan Bridgman, our drummer, was anything like normal, grunting encouragingly.

We set off in the vehicles, crossing the green-breasted island hills in search of Freshwater`s Afton Down. The roads were clogged with other cars and hippie vans and hoards of people, They all looked so happy. So relaxed. Indeed, very relaxed. We saw people still asleep on the grass verges. Policemen waved us on into the melee of human forward movement, all drawn as if by some cerebral magnet to a communal dream.

We drove through a dusty cloud into the backstage area, officious officials growling like gorillas, already losing control of the unwieldy wave of humanity that tsunamied off the approach roads. It was mid-morning, already stiflingly hot, yellow dust rising like steam from the pathways. We got out of the vehicles and there was that sound of thousands of people, unseen as yet beyond this backstage area, hubbling and bubbling in what seemed a continuous harmonious hum of human-being. I looked up and Joan Baez wandered by. She wore a beatific smile on a smoothly tanned beautiful face. Gone in an instant. Unreal.

We ducked inside a huge tent which was the artists` changing area. We dumped our guitars and aspirin and freshly-typed set list and the shreds of our fears and headed out, beyond the fence and into the arena.

Masses of people and children, a kaleidoscope of colours and textures and smells. Alleyways of stalls selling clothes and food and souvenirs and camping gear. People playing guitars as they walked along. People calling out, singing, some cursing, barged and badgered in the press of steaming humanity. The noise level grew steadily, so much so that we soon decided to retreat to the relative peace back stage. We passed a row of aromatic toilets, hordes of people stood anxiously staring at the flimsy doors, dancing from one foot to the other. Septic tanks and curry and incense and weed and sweat and alcoholic halitosis. All human life was here. We scurried back to our tent of peace. It was midday.

My girlfriend had made me a white cotton Jesus outfit specially for the gig. I put it on, momentarily feeling more confident. We couldn`t eat. We gulped water in copious amounts, the heat inside the tent unbearable. At one point Rikki Farr shoved his ugly visage through the tent opening. He scowled, said nothing and disappeared. Everyone was checking watches. Time was bathed in molasses, the hour hand crawling sluggishly toward the number two. It was only then that I suddenly recalled the IRA threat. I closed my eyes, seeing the headlines in tomorrow`s papers. Fame at last. Oh, my god!

Two o`clock came and went. Guitars were tuned and retuned. Our manager dived in and out of the tent. Then: "Over the top!"

We left the safe world of the tent and were confronted by a film crew, a camera shoved in our faces. We walked towards the stage. A flight of stairs led up to the high stage. The film crew bustled around, cameras shoved this way and that, a furry microphone wielded like an intimidating weapon in our faces, ready to eavesdrop on our every word. It was out of luck: we couldn`t speak. I put a foot on the first step, pushing a camera out of the way. Rikki Farr suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Twenty minutes!" he barked. "We`re running late. You`ve got twenty minutes. Get on with it!"

In the time it took us to climb twelve stairs we had to chop our carefully constructed set in half, desperately trying to calculate which songs would give us twenty minutes running time. It was an impossible task. Our minds wouldn`t work. Those bloody cameras were on us again. We were on the stage.

The breath left my body in one sustained gasp and failed to return. There before us was the sea of faces, disappearing in ever smaller dots into the far distance. I glanced to my right. A long, graceful wave of a hill covered in specks of colour. So far away, but so near. A hill of people. A human wave. Above us the endless blue sky. The heavens.

Dan thumped a drum. Steve pumped a bass string tentatively. Ed retuned. I approached the microphone, my breath returning, my heart disappearing in the opposite direction. The familiar opening chords of `Eyewitness` -- I opened my bone dry mouth:"We know you have seen a lot of things..." Appropriate. The sound is surprisingly quiet. We had expected to be deafened by the walls of speakers. They`ve only turned the volume knob to 5. Bastards. And now `Aries` that nostalgic hymn of youth -- but the sound is evaporating in the open air, swept away gently on a balmy breeze. The sound is going to the hill! You can almost see it misting into the green-blue distance. And now an audible wave: applause. Warm, welcoming applause and encouraging calls. But wait... The IRA. If they shoot anyone it`s going to be the singer, center-stage, arms outstretched in his white Jesus-suit. A perfect target. For a frozen moment I thought about looking for the rifle, but brought myself back to the now instantly. Now was not the time to think about my death; I could do that at leisure later in a pool of blood behind the stage, my life melting into the trampled grass like crimson snow, my breath forming a last word, "Bastards..."

A last song. So soon. It can`t be! The last chord. That wave of applause, even warmer than before. Realising suddenly that they have no idea who we are as Fat Farr hadn`t even condescended to introduce us, "Thankyou. We are Fairfield Parlour. Thankyou. Have a great weekend." Gone, gone, gone.

No cameras now. Stagger back to the tent. Intense heat. Water! Water! Strip off. Water! Water! Eyes meet. Smiles now. We did it. It was good. Christ! We`re still alive! Water! Water! Wait... Now they`re going to play the single. The first play between acts. There it is! "Stepping through the hands my eyes adjusting to the light I find no need of words and I notice that you feel the same..." Screech! Scratch. "That`s enough of that crap!" The single goes frisbeeing into the audience never to be seen again. We look at each other. All elation vanishes like the bursting of an optimistic balloon. Dave storms out and soon storms back, his face black. "Let`s get out of here," he growls. "I`ll sort it."

Now with leaden feet we climbed into the car. The engine coughed asthmatically and we jerked forward. We couldn`t speak. I stared out of the window. Grinning faces stared back. Someone slapped the roof of the car as we crawled out of the site. The roads were heaving with people. The sky was so very blue. An impossible blue. I stared at it intently hoping to somehow be transported into that nothingness. We hit a pothole and careered on down the dusty road.

Within an hour we are back at the hotel. Mr Snowball is in the bar telling someone that he invented the hovercraft. We orders drinks. We are physically and mentally exhausted. We slump, deflated in the threadbare sofas. Where are the IRA when you need them?

Saturday 29th August: A day of chaos and recriminations. A beautiful English summer day awash with shimmering sunlight and undulating hazy horizons. A day of angry storm-clouds of lies and deceit. A day of verbal violence and mental upheaval.

We went to see the duplicitous duo. We enter the Foulks` Inglefield House headquarters en masse. Dave storms the ramparts and we follow in his substantial wake, armed with youthful indignation, arms flailing, nostrils flaring, ready for battle. The office appears to have been hit by a terrorist bomb that had been loaded with paper. Every surface is covered in paper. It appears to still be falling from above. There are stereo phones ringing. Women have phones glued to their ears. Men are standing in the center of this earthquake of paper like bewildered geologists. They hold their heads. They stare blindly at cascading paperwork. Coffee cups are spilled. The windows are all open. Paper swirls in the stuffy office. We can hear shouting coming from another room. The curtains are blowing into the room. Phones are ringing off the hook. A woman runs in, takes one look at a graffitied wallchart and runs out.

Dave marches up to Ron and Raymond Foulk, brandishing the Fiery Creations - Fairfield Parlour contract. "Fuck you"s fly in the face of the Foulks. Someone`s turned the volume up to 10. Face to face. High blood pressure. Sweaty hair. Accusations. Vitriol. A raised fist -- then sudden calm. Volume down to 4. A promise to look into it. To have a word with Farr. A law unto himself, someone mutters. Gone crazy. The hill. The Hells Angels. Security. Too much on our plate. The fences. Gotta clear the hill. Food running out. Losing money. The White Panthers. Death threats. Too damn hot. Is no-one in charge of the cyanide hole? Wish it would rain. Yeah -- the single. Leave it to us. Fuck Farr.

Kris Kristofferson ambled through the bar of the Clarendon Hotel. Herbie Snowball tried to tell him something, but Big K, the lanky Yank brushed him aside with a regal wave of his hand and disappeared upstairs to his room. We discussed returning to the festival. The Doors, Joni Mitchell, The Who... Nah. Screw the lot of them. Table tennis is an addictive sport. In a magnanimous moment we agreed to play a free gig in the bar for the old seadog. Tonight was as good as any. During the afternoon there was a flurry of frantic phonecalls between Dave and the Foulks and each time our manager returned to the table tennis tournament he looked increasingly harassed, wild-eyed and desperate. It put him off his stroke and he was thrashed in the second round. The windows were open, the faded curtains blowing in on a lazy sultry breeze. From the bar we could hear the radio; good old Bob: "There must be some way out of here" said the joker to the thief. "There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief..."

We set up in a corner of the bar area. Had a run-through, but our hearts weren`t in it. I couldn`t see the point. We`d been stuffed. Why not just quit while we were down and go home? I couldn`t face another night in that damn rep`s Cortina. The insomnia, the over-night arthritis, all to save a few pounds. Tight bastard.

But I was out-voted and we thrashed out an hour and a half of our stuff to a nicely packed bar and were rewarded with a lively and generous response. Herbie kept the shandies coming and we finished off a pile of cheese sandwiches, more than we would get at most gigs. Often we wouldn`t even get paid. That being the case, we were all looking forward to our handsome fee from playing the festival. It would put some much-needed pounds in our pockets and flesh on our bones. And having gone for the `tight git` option my pay day was going to be even better.

A few people began wandering back from the festival. It was way after midnight. There were stories of arena invasions, food vans on fire and political posturing. Tiny Tim had captivated the audience with his trademark warbling into a megaphone. The Doors had stumbled through a somnambulistic set, whilst the Who stole the day with an electrical volcano of a performance, my namesake further distancing himself from the bad luck that had accompanied my own musical career. Star-blessed Rog, he of the big voice and the big barnet. We`d supported them at the White Hart in Hendon back in `65. My long-distance brother stole my tambourine. Perhaps I should have returned to the festival tonight, got it back. Count yerself lucky, Rog. You won`t be sleeping with a bloody gearstick in yer back tonight.

A billion stars hung in the sky above the island. It was cold. A couple of last decade`s hippies wandered by singing `Amazing Grace.` I could have floored the pair of them with one well-aimed kick. The Cortina limped into Hotel Lay-by.

Sunday 30th August: The squaw and I emerged from the car like two failed contortionists; it took us ten minutes to straighten our crooked backs and another ten minutes to thaw out in the lay-by of the rising sun. A hippie couple were fast asleep rolled up in a Mexican blanket on the grass verge just two feet from the road. Rabbits grazed beside them, but scarpered when they saw us waving our arms like windmills to encourage the return of circulation. A helicopter flew overhead. A gang of startled seagulls headed back out to sea. Litter blew down the road on a light breeze. In the far distance we heard someone playing reveille on a bugle. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

At noon we received the news we`d been waiting for. Fiery Creations had offered an olive branch in an effort to dilute Friday`s Farr fiasco that broke our legal contract. We were invited to play an acoustic version on stage this evening. We were to arrive front of stage around 9pm. In-between one of the major acts we would be given the nod. Ed and I could then perform the Official Isle of Wight Festival Theme Song 1970 in front of the maximum crowd. Wow. Better than we`d expected. Terrifying -- but a fantastic opportunity to give the song the maximum airing and, if enough people then went and bought the single as a momento of the weekend, we still had a chance of that hit record that had alluded us for so long.

During the afternoon Ed and I calmed our nerves by running through the song in Ed`s room. We also loosened up by working on some recently-written songs for the new planned album, `White-Faced Lady.` Every time I thought about this-evening`s performance my heart took a leap in my chest. My throat was as dry as an Arab`s armpit.

Back in the bar we fortified ourselves with our drug of choice, Typhoo. We couldn`t eat. Herbie slapped us on the back a few times and clucked around like a concerned proprietorial father hen. He even forgot to mention that he`d invented the hovercraft.

Late afternoon we set off for the arena. There were hundreds of people seemingly wandering about the roads aimlessly. Some were heading for the arena, but others were sat on the grass verges smoking the same. Some were sprawled almost in the road in a comatose state. There was litter everywhere. A police Panda car forced its way past us and sped up the road. A naked couple had their thumbs out hitching a lift. We were tempted, but continued on our snail`s-pace way.

The site itself was in utter chaos. We bumped through the security gates over the rutted road. Once inside there was no space left so we simply dumped the car and continued on foot. A band was playing on stage. We had no idea who it was as the sound washed around back and fore on the breeze. Behind the stage men in security vests sat around sucking on herbal cigarettes. A group of four guys went by clutching guitars, but we didn`t recognise them. Unlike the Friday, the artists` area behind the stage was crowded. People stood around arguing, others were asleep beneath the stage, some were huddled in groups urgently discussing some kind of transaction. We decided to head out into the public area to get a feel of the festival proper.

A Calcutta crush greeted us. Human beings of every description, wrapped in blankets, naked, torn jeans, dreadlocks, painted faces, laughing children, frantic adults, a policeman wearing a dented red fez. People were stuffing food into their mouths. There was a smell of burning flesh. We pushed ever deeper into the steaming throng. Programmes were on sale for the extortionate sum of two shillings. We gave it a miss. There was so much hair. Long tangled masses of hair. Dirty hair, unwashed and uncombed for days -- like ours; ponytails tied with coloured ribbons; girls in plaits. Some carried boards: It`s Free! Help me! Cheap grub this way. Panthers rule. Kick out the politics. There was shouting, even screaming a long way off. Behind us the band were hammering away, heads down; still couldn`t see who it was. In the far distance, through a smoky blue haze, we glimpsed the tented contours of Desolation Hill, small fires burning, smoke rising. There appeared to be fewer people up there. We`d been told that last night after intense pressure from elements in the crowd and after the concentration-camp style fences had been breached, Rikki Farr had no alternative but to declare it a free festival. The result was a human wave that swept inexorably into the already-crowded arena. We looked in. It was sardines time in there: people almost on top of one another, hardly an inch of space between them. Everyone and everything had taken on an other-worldly appearance, a patina of Wight dust turning this into a heaving grey city. And the swirling noise of the band, the thump and clatter, the chest-imploding bass and the ear-drum damaging high frequency vocals finally drove us back through the crowd to the comparitive sanity of the backstage area.

The sun was moving down the flawless sky. Long shadows. The dust rising, hanging there in the still air. We stood around, not sure when to enter the VIP area. Ed and I were becoming hyper; this was going to be the most important four minute gig of our lives. Break or make time, perhaps. Dan and Steve kept muttering words of encouragement, but wore looks of great relief on their faces, happy not to be climbing up on that stage with us. Eventually, with nowhere else to hide, we went through.

On the Friday when we had performed I`d noticed that the VIP area directly in front of the stage was sparsely populated and orderly. Now it was a circus, packed with people, obviously spilling over from the general crowd section. Some were on their feet dancing and waving their arms around, others were prostrate on the ground out of it, still others sat hunched forward their heads pounding up and down in time to the music. A Joni Mitchell lookalike was breast feeding a baby. The tiny child had a blue spotted bandana tied around its head. Desolation Hill was gradually disappearing as the night`s red curtains closed in. The light was fading and now everything took on an ominous red hue. It became oppressive. The heat of the day seemed to be trapped beneath a lowering sky.

Dave tumbled through the crowd and crashed down beside us where we crouched just in front of the stage. "OK, I`ve told them we`re here and ready to go." Pentangle were leaving the stage so we all looked up for the nod. Rikki Farr and his diminutive elfin sidekick, Jeff Dexter, never looked our way. T Rex, `Ride a white swan.` Between each record we braced ourselves for the nod. Dave`s favourite band The Moody Blues came on to a rousing applause and played a good, but uninspiring set. They waved and were gone. This time we stood up, Ed clutching his guitar protectively. Dave waved Farr`s way to catch his attention, let him know exactly where we were. Someone behind us yelled at us to sit down. More records. The crowd restless between acts. Jethro Tull erupted on stage with Ian Anderson dominating their performance as always, a virtuoso Pied Piper.

As Tull left the stage to rapturous applause Dave leapt up and gesticulated at Farr and his buddy, yelling, almost screaming, to catch their attention. At one point Farr looked down, saw Dave, smiled conspiratorially, and slowly turned away. He and Dexter shared the joke.

You have to admit, it was an amusing little con. There is an old German saying: Sobald ein Esel immer ein Esel. Once a donkey, always a donkey. What fools. What blind fools we were. With Hendrix about to take the stage for his final performance, we left. The Kafkaesque nightmare was over. We drove back to the Clarendon in silence. There was nothing left to say. The decaying moon followed us to Shanklin.

Monday 31st August: It rained in the night. Today we awoke beneath Noah`s great rainbow.

We spent the afternoon on a clifftop overlooking the sea. We took some instruments up there and played all the new songs. Singing out loud. Planning the arrangements for the new album. Already moving on. We hardly mentioned the festival. We passed around a bottle of cider. God, it was a fine day. Fresher after the rain. It felt so good to be out in real fresh air. It was intoxicating. We drank deep. It felt as if we were only now waking from a long and troubled dream.

Tuesday 1st September: It was difficult to drive with every road clogged with humans all heading in the same direction. A bug-eyed hung-over strung-out lethargic wave of human detritus moved inexorably towards the port. "An island is no island, it is just a stepping stone..." Well, not quite. The only way home was via the ferries and they were packed. It was simply a matter of waiting.

I looked out of the Cortina`s dusty windows at this heaving youthful mass. Beneath their universal talcum powder pallor acquired on their Wight weekend they all looked the same. But the hippie label encompassed those who were returning to the dole-rich mainland to live in old Post Office vans and decommissioned London buses on windswept verdant hills -- and those who were returning to their 9-to5s and their grey suits, who would be welcomed by teary mums who were more than willing to wash and iron their filthy clothes in return for a hug and a kiss on the cheek. They still hadn`t realised that the Sixties were dead. Not having really started until '64 this most famous of `decades` was over. After the global high of summer '67 it was a precipitous and slippery slide into the abyss: Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and the Paris riots of '68; Altamont in `69; and the Kent State killings in early `70. But the Sixties truly died exactly a year earlier than the Isle of Wight Festival in a Bel Air mansion when Manson`s family sliced open its main artery. How could anyone maintain an optimistic naive attitude after that? Our eyes had been opened. Where the Fifties were monochrome, the Sixties -- after the late start -- had been Technicolor. Would the Seventies be blood red? Would Vietnam last forever? Would we ever topple the warmongering leaders? Would anyone ever again be able to walk down a suburban street with a flower in their hair? Probably not. Welcome to the real world. Everything good can go bad. Life goes on and nothing really changes. Worship your gods and madmen, but be prepared to face the consequences.

Just two months after the Manson killing spree, the man who had accurately predicted the hippie revolution some eleven years before it actually happened, died aged just 47.

In 1956, Jack Kerouac, the vibrant genius of American literature wrote these prophetic words:

`A world full of rucksack wanderers, dharma bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming all that crap they didn`t want anyway... I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution: thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around - writing poems - giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures...`

And here they were, that great rucksack revolution -- and they were all trying to get on my ferry. Perhaps we should have taken the hovercraft. I closed my eyes, and for the first time in six days, slept like the proverbial log.

Afterword:

We never got paid. We made the new album. It got shelved. The band broke up. Life goes on. Life is good. Nostalgia rots yer teeth. Don`t look back.