A NEW song has been written to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Island’s famous 1968, 1969 and 1970 music festivals.
Isle of Wight band The Alberts have penned a new song, simply called The Festival Song, which tells the story of each of the festivals, names the main bands and artists, and the resurrection of the event in recent years.
Steve Love, who plays double bass and harmonica in the band, explained: "All of us in The Alberts are nuts about the IW Festival and Island music generally.
"Our drummer David Dawson was actually at the 1968 festival, the rest of us are of course far too young to have been there, but we play a lot of music from the same time and the same bands.
"The idea for the song came when I was at a Monday night jam session in the Crispin Arms in Newport looking at all the original festival posters on the wall, and the song just sort of fell out from that.
"We first tried it out at a Quay Arts Originals Night last year and have been working on it since. We have played the song around the Island and it seems to hit the spot, especially when we have people in our audience who were actually at those festivals. We are now looking for the right occasion to officially launch the song on stage."
The band also consists of Allan Patterson on banjo, mandolin and fiddle, and Bob Battista on guitar and vocals.
The Alberts hit the headlines in 2016 when they responded to Ofsted chairman David Hoare’s unwelcome remarks about the IW. Their song, Crime Filled Ghetto? went viral with 19,000 views in a week.
Here are the words of The Festival Song, should you want to sing along:
In sixty-eight when I was just a kid
Someone might have told me, dunno if they did
About a festival down a little country lane
With The Move, Pretty Things and Jefferson Airplane
And Fairport Convention rocked that night
On the Isle of Wight, did you feel all right?
I didn’t go, I was just a kid
But I heard ten thousand people did.
Sixty-nine and the festival’s back
Sunshine, tents, mud, speaker stacks
Tom Paxton, Joe Cocker and the Moody Blues
Julie Felix and Free, and The Who
And Bob Dylan rocked that night
On the Isle of Wight, did you feel all right?
I didn’t go, I was just a kid
But I heard a hundred thousand people did.
Roll on to Nineteen Seventy
They tore down the fences, now the show was free
ELP, Procul Harum, Joan Baez, Hawkwind
The Doors, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim
And Jimi Hendrix rocked that night
On the Isle of Wight, did you feel all right?
I didn’t go, I was just a kid
But I heard a half a million people did.
Then that was it, they said it’s out of hand,
They changed the laws of the land, they got the festival banned
It was the end of the show, So I didn’t go.
The festival’s back now, and I’m gonna go
To the Isle of Wight, I’m gonna see that show
I’m gonna see where rock’n’roll history got made
I’m gonna be where Dylan and Hendrix played
I’m gonna rock all night, on the Isle of Wight
Will I feel all right?
I’m gonna rock all night, on the Isle of Wight,
And I’m gonna feel all right!
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