Sunshine, summer sounds and a glint of gold.
Unless you happen to be lucky enough to live on the Isle of Wight, a trip to the
IOW festival involves the excitement of a ferry crossing from the mainland across the Solent to the island. This greatly adds to the experience, especially when the weather is good, and starts the buzz for what is to come.
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| Ferry to the festival |
I left it rather late to book our ferry crossings and therefore decided to travel with
Wightlink from the smaller port of Lymington across to Yarmouth on the Thursday afternoon, returning on the following Tuesday after an extra day on the island (all the sensibly timed ferries were full on the Monday). This year - 2018 - is a special anniversary for the festival as it celebrates 50 years since the first, much smaller, music festival in 1968 featuring Jefferson Airplane, T Rex and the Pretty Things. Incredibly the Pretty Things also did a set at this year's festival too!
Saturday was 'Gold' day, to commemorate the golden anniversary festival goers were encouraged to wear gold - and very many did just that. Some of the sights were very silly, some were rather skimpy and one guy was parading round in a sparkly gold women's swimming costume (and very little else..).
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| Wearing gold at the festival |
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| Even a gold beard! |
There was even a parade of drummers dressed as gladiators and fire eaters heading for the Strongbow Yard.
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| Strongbow parade |
The weather was perfect, with sunshine and warm temperatures throughout the festival. The crowds were large, especially on the Saturday, but the atmosphere was really friendly and children were having a lovely time spotting life sized Lego men!
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| Lego Superman |
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| Lego Captain America |
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| Lego Spiderman |
There were plenty of food stalls and my two favourites were the Garden Grove Pizzeria for delicious hand-stretched pizza and a wonderfully quirky cake stall called Kitty's Cake Emporium.
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| Cakes galore at Kitty's Cake Emporium. |
Music is the thing, of course, and the line up was superb. Headliners included Kasabian, Liam Gallagher, The Killers, Travis, Manic Street Preachers and Depeche Mode. We were spoiled for choice and exhausted ourselves on the first day dashing from one stage to another trying not to miss anything!
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| The Killers |
My favourite was Nile Rodgers and Chic - they got us all up and dancing and having a great time. Van Morrison was excellent, moving slickly from one jazzy reinterpretation of his songs to another. He didn't have any time for chatter though - pure music for a good hour, non-stop.
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| Nile Rodgers and Chic |
I really enjoyed two acts on the Hard Rock Stage, Suzanne Vega and Gypsyfingers. I hadn't heard of Gypsyfingers before, Mike Oldfield's son Luke fronts the band with his wife Victoria and their beautiful sounds won me over almost immediately.
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| Gypsyfingers |
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| Suzanne Vega |
There were also some whacky bands too which we found greatly entertaining. One of these being Mad King Ludwig and the Mojo Co. (the singer sounds like Tom Waits) and The Weatherkings (a bit like Ian Dury meets The Mars Volta).
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| Mad King Ludwig and the Mojo Co. |
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| The Weatherkings |
Throughout the festival there are fairground rides to try out, some looking spectacularly scary! Not for me, I'm afraid - too timid! However they did look good against the beautiful sunsets we enjoyed.
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| Flags and fairground ride |
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| Spinning in the sunset |
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| Big wheel in the sunset |
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