The weather blessed us with sunshine and warmth from the 13th-16th June apart from a windy, rainy night on the Friday. This was the Isle Of Wight festival set in a beautiful location only a couple of miles from the ferry in Fishbourne, which I caught from Portsmouth.
Security was tight around the whole of the festival with plenty of medics on hand along with police. I saw no bother, so well done with that.
The Stone Roses played a cool, collective set on the Friday and beforehand Emeli Sandé was wonderful to listen to. Palma Violets who I hadn’t heard of where quite enjoyable to watch, they may get much bigger this year.
Ellie Goulding was left thrusting her crotch on stage and banging a very annoying drum in the Blue Tent which was filled with teenage girls, so I left and found a much better vibe on “The Beach” stage where Dance/Dubstep was loudly guzzling out and you couldn’t keep still to it. It was a good build up to get me excited to see Example lay down some tunes after a sterling set from DJ madeon; however, I was unfortunately un-impressed by Example’s lack of vocal skills and didn’t stay to the end of his set.
Bastille, Ben Howard and The Maccabees playing a mix of their new and old songs all had a great reaction from the crowd on a beautiful Saturday afternoon/evening while people enjoyed their ice cool beers. I thought all sets were quite short though. The timings of the slots were often cut. The Killers were 20minutes late on stage, but smashed their set on Saturday night playing most of their hits, and it really put out a buzz of excitement to finish off the evening. A lot of people then went off to see Sub Focus, where feedback from that was positive.
The sun kept shining on Sunday and I was particularly looking forward to seeing Newton Faulkner. Calm, interactive with the crowd, and an all round lovely guy, played a dreamy, chilled session which everyone responded to positively. Unfortunately for me though his set was rather short, 3 more songs would have rounded it off nicely. Intrigued to see Sir Bob Geldof on stage with his band The Boomtown Rats, I hung around. He wasn’t wrong when he said they hadn’t played for 27years, they should have waited another 27years and saved some stage time for someone else.
Paloma Fiath was cool, brilliant soulful voice accompanied by jazzy, swing music which made very easy listening, nice! Next was The Script, who I’ve never been a fan of and I’m still not, but they played well and oozed with energy. Last to play was Bon Jovi. Late by at least 40minutes and playing a measly set not lasting long at all, they surprisingly managed to get a reaction from their fans, but not much from others. Many fled to see Blondie play in the Blue Tent immediately afterwards,
A Poor finish to an all round fairly good weekend. Fireworks lit up the sky and as soon as it had started it was all over. Time to get mingling and find some parties at some tents before it all fizzled out.
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