David Bowie 2004
Dressed in a floor length coat of many colours, Bowie grins at the massive crowd and delivers a set of "old songs, new songs, songs I haven't even written yet". And he makes even the most familiar into something unexpected. 'Station to Station' is full of clanking and foreboding: his crop headed female bassist joins in for an unexpected 'Under Pressure'. He ends with a massive 'Ziggy Stardust', topped off with a loud firework display, and Jimi's 'All Along The Watchtower' on the PA.

Friday 2004

2004 Nokia Isle of Wight Festival

The honour of opening the first three day event falls, in brilliant afternoon sunshine, to the Duke Spirit. With cool blonde Leila Moss bashing a tambourine and singing her heart out, they rattle through a busy set, setting the pace for a frenetic evening ahead . Next up are the 22-20s, bluesy rock with tour-hardened songs and screaming telecasters, a throw back to the heavier bands in 1970. As their singer Martin Trimble puts it, “it’s the things you can’t hear on a record that make a great gig”.

The first of three Welsh bands on the bill, the Super Furry Animals are a triumph, even in daylight and without their spectacular lightshow. Singer Gruff Rhys knows the secret of any great festival performance: take your usual stage performance and then ‘big it up’. Coming on stage in a red cape and matching Power Rangers helmet, he baptises the crowd with a gorgeous ‘Hello Sunshine’, while singalongs ‘Golden Retrievers’ and ‘(Drawing) Rings Round The Moon’ confirm the Super’s reputation as the perfect festival band. Guitar rock with melodies and all kinds of odd angles and bizarre reference points. Gruff dedicates a song to the people of Cowes, “because it has the same name as an animal”. He later reckons the Isle of Wight is “fucking great, like Anglesea, but with more trees”.

Tom Findlay of Groove Armada promised that their set would be a “jamboree of all things groovy”. And as the sun sets, they cascade a riot of summery sounds and heavy action, with everything from reggae-style DJ toasting to live trombone, and some serious dancing, all laid over pre-recorded beats and a set list already familiar from TV jingles. “I see you baby, shaking your ass” is the cry that opens their set, and as the video screens project their singer from behind, bathed in orange light from the lowering sun, a vast crowd respond in ind. Their most memorable hit, ‘Superstylin’’, rings out across the field and 35,000 people jump as one.

They even play ‘Purple Haze’, and though it was a different song to Jimi’s classic, this is the kind of multi-cultural music with psychedelic trimmings that could not exist without Hendrix’s genre-busting. There is a lovely contrast between the two serious musos bent over their keyboards and the exuberant girl singer, all yellow t shirt, brown skin and hoop earrings, and the male bald-headed toaster, dancing to the rhythm and jabbing one hand at the crowd, with an endearing cocky swagger.

The Stereophonics - Kelly Jones

This sets the scene for a full-on ninety minutes of guitar rock and impassioned rough-edged vocals from The Stereophonics. Welsh dragon flags are proudly unfurled in the crowd as the band rattle through their greatest hits. The perfect curtain raiser to a weekend of music in the sunshine. The dying rays of the sun catch front man Kelly Jones perfectly, in his white suit and fedora hat, a self conscious tribute to Dylan. But even Bob never came up with a song title as bizare as ‘More Life in a Tramp’s Vest’. The band pay tribute to Ray Charles with a slow and moody rendition of ‘I’m Asking Why’. A three song encore includes the memorable ‘Have A Nice Day’ and ends with an epic guitar solo.

Saturday 2004
First up are Raw Samba, a local collective of enthusiasts who dress the part and bang drums of all sizes, in exciting polyrhythms. Brazil has come to Seaclose Park. The strangely named Puzzle Muteson is a solo singer and guitarist – in the well worn trial of Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley - who won the Wight Noize auditions, and this is his third ever gig, though he scarcely seems fazed. “I think I’m seeing someone from Virgin later on”. Three years on, Puzzle is still playing local bars, so maybe it was someone from Virgin trains.

Ron Wood’s daughter Leah Wood has a big live sound, and her band’s short, sharp set wins an enthusastic reception in the blazing midday sun. They close with the En Vogue hit ‘Free Your Mind’. Proud Mary are heavy on denim, and singer Greg Griffin delivers strong, rasping vocals, like a young Rod Stewart.

The first band with a real reputation are Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, who John Giddings has chosen to lend a “folk element”. Still possessed of his trademark ‘seen it all’ drawl, Steve is dressed smart casual in short-sleeved shirt and neat trousers, and sings so that you can hear, and treasure, ever word, opening with the Beatles’ ‘Here Comes The Sun’. Key songs from his own pen, such as ‘Judy Teen’, ‘Mr Soft’ and ‘(Make Me Smile) Come Up And See Me’, which has the whole field dancing. Steve looks in good shape, with chiselled features, and his band are seasoned pros, including James Lascelles, once of community band the Global Village Trucking Company, on keyboards.

Steve Harley

Steve recalls sitting on Desolation Row, high over the Afton site, in 1970. “People were shouting up to us to get down and pay the entrance money. If I see the organisers, I’ll give them a fiver”. At which point the 78 year old Ron Smith, prowling around backstage, was seen to prick up his ears. “I’ve played to huge crowds at festivals all over Britain and Europe over a long career, but the Island has always been that special enigma. Its something intangible and almost mythical. It was where Dylan came back in ’69 from his broken neck and sang in his new voice and in that white suit. It is where Hendrix played the blues at three in the morning, then left for another place to die. It’s where Joni got heckled and sounded tearful. My mother and I were there, down from southeast London”.

Back in the 21st century, next up are British Sea Power, who blaze out a frenetic and impassioned set, all short hair and high seriousness with duelling guitars and determined singing. Lyrics about carrion and Skapa Flow are filtered through their own extremely English eccentricities. They dress like soldiers just back from Flanders Fields. One – known to the band as The Official Fleet Reserve, but to his mum as Eamon – even wears a tin hat and comes out from behind his keyboards to bang sturdily on a toy drum as he marches around the stage and then down into the audience, many of whom are wearing ‘Heron Power’ t-shirts.

British Sea Power work through a stripped down and bigged-up version of their usual stage show, full of sturm und drang, and controlled passion. Singer Yan calls their music “odd but authentic”. They are one of the few bands all weekend to improvise, and take risks. They bring the crowd to their feet. This is a band that quotes Elgar, opens their debut album with Gregorian chant, and sometimes throws the Croatian national anthem into its set. For this afternoon’s show, a roadie dressed as a bear is brought to his knees by guitarist Noble wielding a carved heron. The Times reckons they “keep the original (IOW Festival) vibe alive with a wild performance”. Appropriately, their set is immediately followed by a screening of Hendrix playing ‘Voodoo Chile’ at the 1970 event.

Also from the fleshpots of Brighton, Electric Soft Parade are fighting to regain their glory days as one of the “ten hottest guitar bands in the UK”. Upbeat new songs like ‘Misunderstanding’ suggest their might be a way back, and there is an Oasis like swagger to the band onstage, mixed in with delicate harmonies and heavy guitar riffs. Scousers The Stands offer 60s revivalism, heavy on Rickenbackers and West Coast harmonies, even if any stage flash is virtually non existent. Their chiming 12 string strumming steals up on you as if by stealth, until sogns like ‘Here She Comes Again’ have some of the crowd on their feet. They end with a fantastic jam, including a super charged drum solo from Steve Pilgrim, evoking fond memories of Afton.

Jet are a hard rocking quartet from Down Under, in a fine tradition of one-time Aussie bar bands, given a larger stage to strut their stuff. They blast off with ‘Get What You Need’, and plumb their best selling album Get Born for songs like ‘Last Chance’ and the piano ballad ‘Look What You’ve Done’. The crowd sing along en masse to ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’, right from the tambourine intro. Jet prove themselves gutsy, and have people crowding down to the front to catch them close, but they somehow fail to connect in the way that, say, the Darkness had a year before. They come offstage very disappointed.

By the time that Manic Street Preachers hit the stage, Seaclose Park has become a mass of bodies, with people squeezing themselves into every conceivable space. Always a band to wear their hearts on their sleeves – and their brains fully switched on - they seem a trifle road rusty, but rise to emotional highs few contemporary bands could even dream of. Like Pink Floyd they carry a (possibly) living ghost around with them, in their case the troubled Richey Edwards. They also try out some new songs. The Manics seem to wake up half way through their set, just as Hendrix did a generation before. James Dean Bradfield half croons, half barks his way through gems like ‘From Despair To Where’, ‘If You Tolerate This’ and ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, all sweaty intensity and embittered grace. They leave an enraptured crowd with a monumental ‘Design For Life’, which thunders around the darkening arena.

Soon, however, the crowd are buzzing with anticipation of The Who, and the atmosphere is electric. Since their earth-shattering three hour show at Afton in 1970, the Who have been buffeted by events out of a Greek tragedy. Drummer Keith Moon died in 1978 as a result of an outrageous drink and drug fuelled lifestyle. Then, just as the band were planning a massive comeback US tour in 2002, bassist John Entwistle died suddenly, in a motel room, supposedly with a hooker and a pile of cocaine, and Pete Townshend was charged with downloading images of children from the internet.

Roger Daltrey proved steadfast in a time of travail, and there is something oddly touching about seeing the two Who survivors clustered together stage front, like friends reunited, with a line of brilliant but anonymous session men stretched out behind. The band play from 10 until well after midnight, and are totally brilliant. It is a set which kick starts the Isle of Wight Festival as something more than just a tribute to past glories – an explosive, passionate two hours which is epic in its own right, as well as making all kinds of connections with East Afton. The blue stage lights add to the sense of something from a lost world, resurfacing.

The Who

Ahead of the show, Daltrey tells the local newspaper that “it feels good to be back on the Island, it doesn’t seem like anything else has changed. As a band, all we’ve got is the music now, but Pete has still got it when it comes to writing. All I can remember about 1970 is getting drunk with Jim Morrison, but the bugger died, and never bought his round. I have not got any expectations about what tonight will be like, it’s a mystery to me why anyone still comes to see us now”.

Well they certainly do. The arena is packed, with a sell-out crowd of 35,000 people, fans old and new, and a huge roar greets the band as they hit the stage, plunging into a venomous retread of their early hit single ‘I Can’t Explain’. Daltrey looks older, a hard little mod, in spectacles and short grey hair, and Townshend – in black shades, perched behind him like a vulture - looks enigmatic with sudden bursts of anger as he strikes his guitar like a weapon. He scrubs at it like a washboard, then windmills his arm, slashing monumental power chords. He also tells the crowd that some of them might well be his own children, engendered back at Afton. Though looking around my part of the crowd, this would be genetically impossible, people either being too young, too old, or lacking his trademark anteater nose.

The crowd jump around for ‘Substitute’, and a string of greatest hits – spread across the years - like ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’, ‘Who Are You’, ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ and ‘Baba O’Reilly’, with the synthesiser intro echoing around the arena. Next up are highlights from mod opera Quadrophenia, including a menacing ‘Punk and the Godfather’, followed by acoustic renditions of ‘Drowned’ and ‘naked Eye’. Daltrey straps on an acoustic guitar. Then back to the full electric crunch of ‘Good Looking Boy’ and ‘You Better, You Bet’. The crowd erupt again for ‘My Generation’, stutters still in place, coupled with a splenetic version of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, still relevant after all these years.

For the encore, the band return to the stage for a medley of Tommy highlights, from ‘Pinball Wizard’ to an anthemic ‘Listening to You’.

In a self conscious homage to their own past, the Who close their set with a spirited version of ‘Magic Bus’, just like at Afton thirty four years before. What was once a cry to embrace psychedelia is now a tribute to all those lost out on the hippie trail. Including half of the original band.

Let Suzanne Vega describe the on-stage drama, watching with the eyes of a fellow musician, and a lyric poet.

2004 Stage

“The Who’s energy as they hit the stage is like a punch in the face. The younger bands have been good, but this is at another level. Early on in the set, Townshend begins to shout for them to turn up the music, complaining that it was too quiet. Everybody cheers loudly, and he seems to visibly relax. It is good to see some humour in his craggy face. Daltrey at one point launches into a harmonica solo which sounds bizarre, having nothing to do with the rest of the song. Townshend whispers into his ear, and Daltrey flings the harmonica away. Someone has given him a harmonica in the wrong key. I am more and more drawn in by Townshend, by his dark charisma, and the language of his body with the guitar. When he does the first windmill, I am struck by the absolute defiance of the gesture, not only in his arm. But especially his eyes. And then down every sinew of his body”.

“I can’t imagine leaning against a bar and having a drink with him somehow. Although one senses self-loathing and personal unhappiness, the way he transforms it onstage is pure dark alchemy. I love the way he plays acoustic guitar especially, he opens up all new possibilities of how to play it. I came away completely inspired. He did a runner afterwards, so we will never know about him”. .

Sunday 2004
Sunday dawns sunny and sets fair by lunchtime, with Raw Samba once again welcoming early arrivals to the arena with some Brazilian beats, before making way for Countermine, who claim “our tour bus is our second home”. They return therem without having made any real mark on a somnabulant crowd.

As their name might suggest, Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club are crowd pleasers who get the audience going with a friendly mix of Cuban fazz and salsa. A last minute replacement, The Ordinary Boys are anything but laid back – a white ska band, young and speedy, who bound onstage to a Madness tape and grab the opportunity by the throat, with front man Preston tearing into each hymn to dissatisfaction. They encore with Eddie Cochran’s ‘Summertime Blues’, as the Who had failed to play their own version the night before.

Suzanne Vega

Amongst all the heavy rock, Suzanne Vega is like a drink of ice-cold water on a hot day. Wearing a black trouser suit with red t shirt and sneakers, dark shades, copper hair and exquisitely pale skin, she is thin and confident looking, holding her large acoustic guitar like a machine gun. Suzanne exudes New York cool and a mastery of wordplay, delivered in a quiet, intimate fashion – as if sharing a condifence – and backed by a crack band of electric guitar, bass and drums, that respond to her every mood.

Vega’s experience playing folk haunts has taught her instinctively how to connect with a dozy, mid-afternoon crowd. ‘Can you take a long ballad?’ she asks of the audience, and they certainly can. She also covers the Who’s ‘Between Blue Eyes’, to everyone’s surprise, and ends by getting the “lobster pink” crowd to hum along to the wordless chorus of ‘Tom’s Diner’, like a mass karoake session. And ‘Luka’, her song about child abuse, brings shivers on a hot day.

John Giddings is her long term agent. “When he gets an idea in his brain about something, he keeps at it until it happens. I f you have seen me playing on an ancient Italian windswept temple, or on the flight path in Cagliari, or a deep cave in Gibralta, or the Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin, you know that Giddings has been there, and decided that’s where I must play”. So he brought her to the Isle of Wight

“We took the stage. It was blindingly bright. I put my sunglasses on and took them off all through the show, playing with them and with the audience. I looked out at the huge crowd. They wre standing up and reached very far back. I was happy to see them standing, that gives it some energy. The usual girls in bikini tops at festivals were standing around waving . I like to see people singing along and there were a lot of them. Sometimes even the security guards sing, which is funny, seeing big burly men singing ‘Marlene on the Wall’”.

The Delays

After Suzanne came The Delays, a young Southampton band who have brought a lot of their home supporters across the Solent with them, and play a lovely set, and great vocal harmonies. They sport a wide range of pyschedelic/mod t shirt and even a rustic hat not seen on a stage since Steve Winwood led Traffic.

Most of the songs come from their debut album Faded Seaside Glamour, a masterpiece of seaside pop, with strange undercurrents. As singer Greg Gilbert says, “it’s a statement of our mindset, the optimism and the melancholy and wanting to get out. We wanna be the perfect pop band”. And on this evidence, they damn as near are.

Next up is a brilliant set from Snow Patrol, a Scottish-Irish hybrid of a band, clad in black, fresh from a US tour and only a year into a recording contract. After a spot of impromtu football in the backstage area, they hit the stage running, and “seem grateful just to play”, telling the crowd that they are the largest audience by far they have yet played in front of. Their set combines raw electronics and pure pop melodies: it is a blend they will refine over later IOW Festivals.

The Charlatans

Welcomed as returning heroes, The Charlatans play a magnificent set in the evening sunshine, that draws heavily on their most introspective album, Up At The Lake. Highlights include ‘North Country Boy’, ‘The Only One I Know’ and ‘Tellin’ Stories’ as well as a “blistering” version of ‘Impossible’, each one greeted like an alternative national anthem. Since 2002, when they headlined, the band have watched the Isle of Wight Festival blossom. Organist Tony Rogers reckons the even has grown “big time”. “There is a really friendly atmosphere. The line-up for this year is much bigger – a lot of bands are trying to get on the bill”. As to Tim Burgess, “Sailing over to the Island was a boat ride to freedom and fun, turning into a special weekend of sunshine and sound. I can imagine the Rolling Stones and Madonna playing there next year”. Right on one count , and it took a year longer.

Meanwhile, another of the great superstars of popular music is just about to hit the stage. As twilight falls, the giant screens and a full stereo system carries a report on the second half of the England versus France match, beamed straight from the European Championships. Zidane snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, silencing every England supporter in the crowd. Though David Bowie is on stage before the result has time to properly sink in.

Talking to Virgin Radio beforehand, he confirmed that he used to often go to the Island as a boy, and has agreed to appear tonight out of jealousy. “I jumped at it. I was so envious of other acts. Irts really coming back”. Playing outdoor events was “definitely one of my favourite ways to work”. And backstage, “we all know one another, it will be a gas”.

David Bowie

Tonight, Bowie takes us on a journey through four decades of pop history, starting with a pounding ‘Rebel, Rebel’. This is a man who invented new wave music virtually single handed, having been in turn a mod, hippie and soul boy. Cheeky, too. “So, Isle of Wight motherfuckers, how are you doing? He will be singing “Old songs, new songs, songs I haven’t written yet”. And he never stands still, in any sense. Looking fantastic in a floor-sweeping coat of many colours, tight t shirt and slinky scarf. He has a fully road-tested band following his every mood. Long term Bowie sidekick Earl Slick sets his guitar strings squealing, Mike Garson adds an ornate edge on florid keyboards, while elegant, crop-haired Gail Ann Dorsey stabs at her electric bass. She also takes Freddie Mercury’s vocal part on ‘Under Pressure’. The whole performance is pitched somewhere between showbiz and shamanism. David draws the crowd to him as he dances in the (serious) moonlight.

The set list mixes newer songs with some of the more unexpected delights from his back catalogue. Bowie is clearly happy to be here on the Island, and up for a laugh, telling the crowd that they must be quiet so as not to disturb the animals in the fields. “No singing along with this one, promise”. Then he launches into an anthemic version of ‘All The Young Dudes’, knowing full well that they would do the exact opposite. And they do, with a vengeance.

David looks great on the giant screens, hamming it up for ‘Fame’ like a male Madonna. He plays a fascinating version of ‘Man Who Sold The World’, beautiful and slow and menacing . ‘Station to Station’ is full of clanking and foreboding. But this is not a man constrained by his past, and other highlights include a steely cover of the Pixies song ‘Cactus’, a powerful ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’ from Earthlings, and a goodly chunk of the 2003 album Reality. He closes with a massive ‘Ziggy Stardust’, after which the whole band come up to the front of the stage to take a collective bow. Jimi Hendrix’s version of ‘All Along The Watchtower’ thunders over the PA. The connection with 1970 could not have been clearer. Fireworks light up the festival site, and prove to be the loudest thing of the whole weekend, as the crowd seem to disappear in a matter of minutes, buzzing happily.

Taken from Bold as Love, Return of the Isle of Wight Festival (Solo, 2nd ed 2006) by Brian Hinton - See Brian's Books on Amazon