Bob Dylan 1969
The most famous recluse in the world is tempted out of retirement to head up a three day event at Woodside Bay, and amazes everyone with his short hair, baggy white suit and country ways. He blinks shyly at the massive crowd, acts bashful and polite, and sings his heart out, backed by the brilliance of the Band.

The Godshill event might have remained an interesting footnote to the history of rock in the sixties. It became instead the seed from which two far stranger and more exotic blooms took root, for two reasons. One was the Island itself, long the haunt of poets and mystics - Tennyson's garden isle - which became the natural setting for the 'back to nature' ideology of open air festivals. The second was the three Foulk brothers - Ray, Ron and Bill. Along with promoter Rikki Farr - all four were still only in their twenties - they had been heavily involved in organising the Godshill event, and under the name Fiery Creations set about putting on a second festival. It was their energy and determination which now went boldly where no one else had dared go before. And the dream came true.

Bob Dylan
Local rumour has the idea for inviting Bob Dylan emerging from a drinking session in a local Totland hostelry. Turner Smith describes:

"The next winter, the Foulks said, "We're thinking of having another one, Ron; we're thinking of having Dylan." Ray, who had studied graphic design at Southampton University, put together a beautiful brochure, and said he was going off to the States. We looked at what money we had, and we had enough for Ray's return air ticket, but nothing for him to live on in the States. He went off, with enough cash to get a taxi to Dylan's place, and spoke at the intercom at the gate to Dylan, and Dylan let him in. He stayed there three or four days, and came back with Dylan's agreement to appear at the pop festival, and from then onwards, it was fairly easy."

Bob Dylan

Dylan arrived at Heathrow Airport late on the evening of Monday 25 August and settled into Forelands [a farmhouse near Bembridge with a swimming pool and a recently converted barn suitable for rehearsing in]. On the Tuesday, George Harrison and friend Mal Evans, an ex Cavern Club 'bouncer', drove to the Isle of Wight. Harrison and his wife Patti returned on the Thursday and stayed with the Dylans at Forelands for the rest of Dylan's stay.

Security, while tight was very low key at Forelands Farm. The atmosphere was relaxed. Judy Lewis, drafted in as housekeeper, recalls the minutiae of those dream days:

"One of the first things Bob asked me to get him was some honey. He was quiet and came over as a very well mannered person. Most of his time he spent playing guitar with George Harrison. He took a liking for blackberry and apple pies and fruit cakes! Sara was constantly going on at him about his diet. I was forever supplying endless cups of tea to him and Harrison. After supper some evenings he would ask if I would like him to sing something. I would demote George Harrison to go fetch things from the kitchen and help me do the washing up so I would not miss anything."

Judy Lewis recalls that Dylan and Harrison spent some time playing tennis: "I must admit that Dylan wasn't very good at all." Ringo Starr with his wife Maureen spent a day with the Dylans at the farmhouse. Another guest was John Lennon with Yoko as ever in attendance.

The return of the pop messiah
Meanwhile ticket applications were flooding in, with 5,000 requests for tickets in the week after news of Dylan's appearance first broke. An attendance of at least 100,000 people was already projected to 'help Dylan sink the Isle of Wight'.

Dylan and his band

Plans were still in place for a two-day event. As an indication of Dylan's financial worth, tickets for Sunday afternoon - when he and the band would top the bill - were £2. Attendance on Saturday would cost a mere 25 shillings for an all-day concert, or only ten bob extra for a weekend ticket to see the Who, Moody Blues, Joe Cocker and nine other top-line acts.

By Monday 25 August, over 500 fans were already camping on the Festival site - including American students who had built a wooden hut and named it 'Desolation Row' after the Dylan song.

Ian Lewis, of the Preston Bob Dylan Society, captured the sense of the pilgrimage. One of his friends even left home for good to attend! "I set off on the Monday morning before the Festival. My first lift took me to Manchester, then another to just north of London. From there I started to walk; I spent the night in a park shelter. Next night I landed up in Green Park, near the Palace; the park was full of people sleeping rough."

Ian then took the train to Portsmouth. "There was no Dylan on the juke-box so I put on the Nice playing 'America'. I felt I had walked from America! The ferry was packed, people were sleeping on the floor, everybody had a rucksack and a sleeping bag, smoking Woodbines, talking about what Dylan would play. The feeling was that we were part of something very special!"

"Everyone was so friendly."

The Festival site had now been doubled in size and the organisers announced that tickets would now be on sale at the Festival gate. There was sufficient room to ensure that none wishing to go to the Festival need be disappointed. A local scout group put up tents for the homeless, and people pooled food. Ian Lewis still remembers a large communal pot of baked beans, bubbling on an open fire. "Everyone was so friendly."

More to the point, the stage was now in place. Ron 'Turner' Smith remembers:

"Suddenly the stage started to give at the top; the front beams - constructed out of linked scaffold poles - started to sag. I got a digger across to the site, and he stuck his bucket up and managed to get it underneath, to stop the stage collapsing. We strengthened it, and altered the design somewhat, and Bill was nearly crying, but we managed to save the day. If you look closely at the photographs, there is a kink in the facia of the stage."

To cope with over twice the Island's usual population, the Festival organisers had created on site an electric, inflatable city.

The following article, from an unnamed North of England provincial paper, sums up the atmosphere; indeed it was so favourable that the 1970 Festival programme reprinted it as a kind of statement for that, still greater event.

"For three days, this beautiful, reserved island in the Solent had throbbed from coast to coast to the sound of blues, folk and pop music…

"Hidden in the trees was Festival City - a canvas community of shops, restaurants and snack bars, where you could buy most things from joss-sticks to hot meals…. This was home for the hippie population. They were Festival Citizens, dressed in bowler hats, top hats, striped blankets, tattered jeans and headbands.

"They showed respect and tolerance. As one hippie said, "I don't know anywhere else where you could put something down in a crowd, come back, and find it still there."

Summing up from the Record Mirror

"Many a night of live, a moment of freak and an hour of good music had been shared at the biggest, most elaborate festival in history. Dylan had returned but maintained his mystic aura and once again a generation proved itself worthy of its ideals. A big hand for Fiery Creations' magnificent gesture and another for those countless thousands who sank the IOW not with a bang but with a respectful note of thanks. "

Thank you Dylan for coming, thank you organisers for organising, thank you players for playing and, most of all, thank you all the people for your peace and behaviour."

1970 Festival prospectus

A little ironic, in view of the events that were to unfold in 1970.

The above extracts are taken from Brian Hinton's "Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival 1968 - 1969 - 1970".

Copyright: Brian Hinton, 1995 - See Brian's Books on Amazon

Some images copyright Beken of Cowes

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