'' estimated at between 600,000 and 700,000 people
26 Wednesday •
Judas Jump: A heavy
progressive rock band featuring
Andy Bown and
Henry Spinetti of
the Herd and Allan Jones of
Amen Corner. • Kathy Smith: A Californian singer-songwriter, signed to
Richie Havens' label, "Stormy Forest", was well received. •
Rosalie Sorrels: Another folk musician, accompanied by David Bromberg on guitar. •
David Bromberg: Bromberg was not on the bill, but he performed a set. "Mr. Bojangles" was included on the album
The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies. •
Kris Kristofferson: Performed a controversial set. Due to poor sound, the audience was unable to hear his set, and it appeared that they were jeering him. He was eventually booed off the stage because the audience could not properly hear his song "Blame It on the Stones" and ignorant members of the audience assumed he was criticising the Rolling Stones and the whole youth movement. "It was a total disaster," Kristofferson recalled. "They just hated us. They hated everything. They booed us,
Joni Mitchell,
Joan Baez,
Sly Stone; they threw shit at
Jimi Hendrix. At the end of the night, they were tearing down the outer walls, setting fire to the concessions, burning their tents, shouting obscenities. Peace and love it was not." •
Mighty Baby:
psychedelic rock band.
27 Thursday •
Gary Farr: The brother of festival promoter Rikki Farr, Gary had been the front man of the T-Bones, an R&B combo that featured
Keith Emerson on keyboards. By this time, he had become a solo artist, and his second album,
Strange Fruit, for CBS Records, had been released in 1970. •
Supertramp: Their eponymous
debut album was released a month prior to the festival. •
Andy Roberts' Everyone • Ray Owen: Ex-
Juicy Lucy vocalist with his band • Howl: Scottish hard-rock band formerly known as the Stoics, featuring
Frankie Miller •
Black Widow: a British band that wrote songs about Satan worship in their 1970 debut LP,
Sacrifice •
Groundhogs: English
blues rockers •
Terry Reid: The English singer performed with
David Lindley. The set was released on CD in 2004. •
Gilberto Gil and
Caetano Veloso: Brazilian
Tropicália musicians. •
Gracious!: A British
progressive rock band.
28 Friday •
Fairfield Parlour: They had recorded a single called "Let The World Wash In", released under the name I Luv Wight, which they hoped would become the festival's theme song. They had also previously recorded as Kaleidoscope. •
Arrival: Their set included a
Leonard Cohen song. •
Lighthouse: This Canadian act performed two sets at the festival. •
Taste: Guitarist
Rory Gallagher had a blues trio from 1966 to 1970. This was one of their final shows, which was filmed and recorded. An album,
Live at the Isle of Wight, was released of their set in 1971. Their set is featured on the ''Taste: What's Going on – Live at the Isle of Wight 1970'' DVD & Blu-ray released in 2016. •
Tony Joe White: Performed hits including "
Polk Salad Annie"; his drummer was
Cozy Powell. Tony Joe's entire set was released in 2006 on
Swamp Music, a Rhino Handmade collection of his Monument recordings. •
Chicago: Their set included "
25 or 6 to 4," "
Beginnings" and "
I'm a Man." Their entire set was released as part of the box set
Chicago: VI Decades Live (This is What We Do) (2018) and separately on
Chicago: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival (2018). •
Family: Their set included "
The Weaver's Answer," which had become their signature song. •
Procol Harum: Frontman
Gary Brooker commented that it was a cold night. "
A Salty Dog" was included on
The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies album. •
The Voices of East Harlem: An ensemble of singing school children from
East Harlem in
New York City. Their set received several standing ovations. •
Cactus: Two songs from their set were featured on the LP
The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies. • A showing of the Murray Lerner film
Festival.
29 Saturday •
John Sebastian: Performed an 80-minute set, during which former
Lovin' Spoonful guitarist
Zal Yanovsky made a surprise guest appearance. •
Shawn Phillips: This American folk musician performed an impromptu solo set following John Sebastian. •
Lighthouse (second set) •
Joni Mitchell: Played a controversial set; following her performance of "
Woodstock", a hippie named Yogi Joe interrupted her set to make a speech about the people at the festival in an encampment built of straw bales known as
Desolation Row. When Joe was hauled off by Joni's manager, the audience began to boo until Mitchell interrupted her own set to chastise the audience and make an emotional appeal to "give us [the artists] some respect". Contrary to popular belief, Joe was not the man who was ranting about a "psychedelic concentration camp". That was another incident that took place the previous day. After the crowd quieted down, Mitchell closed her set with "
Both Sides Now" and returned to the stage for an encore singing two more songs for an appreciative crowd. Her set is featured on the DVD Joni Mitchell Both Sides Now: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970, released in 2018. •
Tiny Tim: His rendition of "
There'll Always Be an England" can be seen in the film
Message to Love. •
Miles Davis: A DVD of his complete set was released in 2004. "Call It Anythin'" was included on
The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies album. •
Ten Years After: British blues rockers performing what was basically a reprise of their famous Woodstock set. Highlights included "I'm Going Home" and "I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes," which was featured on the album
The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies and the film
Message to Love. •
Emerson, Lake & Palmer: This was their second gig.
Pictures at an Exhibition, which featured the
Moog synthesizer, was the centerpiece of their historic set. Commercially released as
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 in 1997. •
The Doors: Their set was shrouded in darkness due to
Jim Morrison's unwillingness to have movie spotlights on the band. Their performances of "
The End" and "
When the Music's Over" are featured in
Message to Love. As described in Morrison's biography,
No One Here Gets Out Alive, wind, bad weather, and the cold made their performance even harder. Bootleg recordings of the performances and audio exist, alongside a 2015 remastered release by Doxy Records which has been made available on Spotify. A live version of "
Break On Through (To the Other Side)" was featured in the soundtrack for ''
When You're Strange''. Their set is featured on the Doors:
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 in a combo DVD/CD – Blu-ray/CD & DVD – Blu-ray released in 2018. •
The Who: Their entire set, including the rock opera
Tommy, was released in 1996 on CD (
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970). Two years later their set appeared on DVD with significant cuts from
Tommy and a few other songs (such as "Naked Eye") missing. •
Melanie: This
Woodstock veteran played a well-received set as the sun rose. Prior to her set,
Keith Moon of
the Who offered her some moral support and encouragement. Not until afterwards did Melanie realize who he was. Her performance of her own song, "
What Have They Done to My Song Ma", was included in a 2010 French documentary, spanning the 1970 and 2010 I.O.W. festivals, called
From Wight to Wight and first shown on TV station ARTE, on 30 July 2010. •
Sly and the Family Stone: The showstoppers of
Woodstock performed to a tired audience on the early morning of Sunday. However, the audience woke up for spirited renditions of "
I Want to Take You Higher", "
Dance to the Music" and "
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", which featured Sly on guitar. "Stand" and "You Can Make it if You Really Try" appeared on the album
The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies. Prior to their encore, another political militant decided it was time to make a speech and the booing audience started to throw beer cans onto the stage.
Freddie Stone was hit by a flying can and an angry Sly decided to skip the encore. He did promise a second appearance, but this never occurred.
30 Sunday • Good News: American acoustic duo with Larry Gold on cello and
Michael Bacon on guitar. •
Kris Kristofferson (second set). For his second set he was warmly received. He came on with a bigger band and joked when he took the stage: 'Well, I'm back but this time I've brought some bodyguards'. Two of his songs from his sets were included on the album
The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies. •
Ralph McTell: Despite an enthusiastic reception from the audience, he did not play an encore, and the stage was cleared for Donovan. •
Heaven: British jazz-influenced rock band, managed by Rikki Farr. •
Free: Their set list consisted of "Ride on a Pony", "Woman", "The Stealer", "Be My Friend", "Mr. Big", "Fire and Water", "I'm a Mover", "
The Hunter", their classic hit "
All Right Now", and concluded with a cover of
Robert Johnson's "
Crossroads" (a la
Cream's arrangement). •
Donovan: He first performed an acoustic set, and then an electric set with his band Open Road. •
Pentangle: British folk band. A German woman interrupted their set to deliver a political message to the audience. •
The Moody Blues: A popular British act and veterans of the 1969 festival. Their rendition of "
Nights in White Satin" can be seen in
Message to Love. Their set is featured on
Threshold of A Dream Live at the Isle of Wight 1970. •
Jethro Tull: Their set is featured on
Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 which also shows clashes between the band's manager and the promoters. •
Jimi Hendrix: Performed in the early hours of 31 August with
Mitch Mitchell on drums and
Billy Cox on bass. Throughout Hendrix was beset by technical problems (during "
Machine Gun" the security personnel's radio is clearly heard through Hendrix's amplifier).
David Gilmour claims to have helped mix the sound that night. The set has been released on CD and video in various forms. "Power to Love", "Midnight Lightning" and "
Foxy Lady" received top billing on the album
The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies. •
Joan Baez: Her version of "
Let It Be" can be seen in the film
Message to Love. •
Leonard Cohen: Backed by his band the Army, his tune "Suzanne" can be seen in the film
Message to Love. "Tonight Will Be Fine" were included on the album
The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies. In October 2009, audio and video (both DVD and Blu-ray) recording of his set,
Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 was released. •
Richie Havens: The musician who opened
Woodstock closed this festival with a set during the morning of 31 August. As Havens performed his version of "
Here Comes the Sun", a cloudy dawn broke after four days of cloudless sky, so he changed the lyrics to "Here Comes the Dawn". Havens' set, which is available as an audience recording, also included "
Maggie's Farm" by
Bob Dylan, "Freedom", "Minstrel from Gault" and the
Hare Krishna mantra. ; Canvas City performances :*
Hawkwind (on Thursday) :*
Pink Fairies (on Thursday) :*
T2 On the bill, but did not perform: •
Cat Mother •
Spirit •
The Everly Brothers •
Redbone •
Mungo Jerry ==Films and albums==