Fire Island Blog

Living in the same road as the permanent exhibition celebrating the 1970 IOW festival, walking past the Jimi Hendrix statue every day, working on realising the dream of creating Fantasy Festivals, and just generally loving live music and festivals, it’s fair to say I was looking forward to this year’s IOW festival.

Not just the headline bands like the Foo Fighters and Coldplay, but the whole festival experience.

That might seem a bit obvious, but actually it’s a turn-around for me, as I’ve been a bit of a festival snob towards the re-invented IOW festival and it’s only just won me over.

To me, the re-incarnation (it came back in 2002 after a 30 year gap) had seemed a bit one-dimensional and too much like a council-run event. For someone who fell in love with the chaos that is Glastonbury festival it definitely paled in comparison with the now legendary original festivals of ‘68, ‘69, ‘70) and all that they represented (there’s tons of history out there, including the film ‘Message to Love’ just ask Google…)

But letting go of what was and could be, and taking it for what it actually is (just some great bands coming to play on my doorstep) I was pleasantly surprised.

OK, (still harping back to Glastonbury here) there was none of the sense that you were entering a foreign land with no rules, you couldn’t exactly lose yourself for days on end with all the alternative entertainment and there was hardly an old hippy in sight. All in all the ‘people watching’ was a bit tame.

But the music was great. Coldplay’s set was fantastic, the sun shone all weekend, I didn’t see any ugly scenes (except the bogs) and there was a sea of smiling faces all around.

There was more to do than just sit at the main stage this year. ‘The band stand’ was a platform for Island bands (’Bastilla’ on sunday afternoon were superb) and the Bacardi and Strongbow tents were packed for some great DJ sets.

To top it all off, Monday brought more sunshine and a nice clean 2-3ft wave at Compton (perfect day for longboarding) to wash away the festival dust and re-charge the batteries. So even for someone who thought that maybe his ‘festival days’ were behind him….. It’s times like these you learn to live again