Anyone remember when festivals meant something?

[jonblake]

Question: is a festival a better experience today than in 1969, when the UK's first great music festival was held on the Isle of Wight?

I'm genuinely interested to know what people think, particularly those who aren't, like me, baby boomers.

Ok, if you're 21, you never experienced those early festivals, but if you check out www.dylan69.com, I've done my best to bring that 1969 festival alive.

It's not just about nostalgia: many of the issues of 1969 are just as relevant today.

I might also add that my home movies of IOW 1969 are the only colour footage you will see of this event!

[austingz]

Question: is a festival a better experience today than in 1969, when the UK's first great music festival was held on the Isle of Wight?

I'm genuinely interested to know what people think, particularly those who aren't, like me, baby boomers.

Ok, if you're 21, you never experienced those early festivals, but if you check out www.dylan69.com, I've done my best to bring that 1969 festival alive.

It's not just about nostalgia: many of the issues of 1969 are just as relevant today.

I might also add that my home movies of IOW 1969 are the only colour footage you will see of this event!

[jonblake]

To TB: Isn't that the question I just asked?

As for IOW69's pedigree, can you name a rock festival which involved camping and attracted 150,000 prior to that event?

To Austingz: do you accept the cost of festivals without question?

Edited July 8, 2011 by jonblake

[hoils]

why was the IOW anymore 'meaningful' than todays festivals?

[Ian_Mackay]

I'd also like to know what IOW69 meant that's different to festivals today.. care to share, or do I need to purchase your book on the subject?!

[sisterofmercy]

Does it matter?

All this 'Glasto's not as good as it used to be' rubbish really baffles me. Why bother holding onto something that's in the past and complaining about it when you can just go with the flow and embrace the present instead? Things change constantly so it makes sense to adapt and keep an open mind about it all.

It's one thing to have a good memory but it's another to base every other festival on something that happened decades ago.

[mrtourette]

Today's festivals probably aren't as meanigful to an oldie who remembers festival from years back, but they're probably just as meaningful to today's kids as the old festivals were to kids back then. Of course that standards of meaningful have been changed by society so that they probably aren't the same, but hey, welcome to 2011.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Glastonbury this year was in aid of Oxfam, Greenpeace and WaterAid, along with prominent advertising and screentime for such diverse campaigns as the Bhopal-related boycott of Dow and War On Want's Pro-Palestinian single release.

Remind me again of what IOW 1969 was about, other than profit for the organisers?

[jonblake]

Ok, the title was intentionally contentious, but hold on a second with all the assumptions everybody!

If you check the photos of those early festivals, it's hard to find a person smiling. No question people enjoy themselves far more today. Then again, they're not being lambasted by the media as degenerate hippies. Enjoying yourself in a field is now sanctioned by society. Good! It's part of what those pioneers were fighting for.

But when 150,000 flocked to see Dylan, they were hoping for a lot more change than that.

Those hopes were generally naive.

That's some of the things I've been writing about. Sorry I have written a book, btw, and would like people to read it. My motive, unlike the organisers of most festivals (including IOW1969) is not money.

[CaledonianGonzo]

the main thing (as far as I can remember, and I didn't go) was simply that Dylan was playing and The Beatles went to see him

[sifi]

Spam. 1960s spam but spam nonetheless.

Wasn't even that a good performance by Dylan.

[sifi]

Just checked the set list, it wasn't all JWH and Skyline.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Yeah - looking at it it's more or less a set of standards, the crowdpleasing sell-out. Dylan's got a long way to go before he can start alienating audiences the way Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood can..

This also jogs my memory that a few tracks from IoW were on Self-Portrait

[sifi]

They were yeah. Didn't save it from being rubbish mind.

[sifi]

And Bob never alienated any of his audience. Oh no.

[jonblake]

Yes, Dylan admitted himself that Self-Portrait was a deliberate attempt to make an awful album that would rid him of his iconic status for good. IOW69, if nothing else, was a historical event where Dylan unveiled a new, and decidedly more conservative self.

I wasn't a great fan of Dylan in 1969, nor of most of the music at the IOW festival, tbh. The music I've liked has never belonged to one era. But it does frustrate me when people aren't interested in looking at history, not in order to say the past or the present is better, simply to contrast and compare and see what we can make of it.

69ers is selling well to the baby boomers, and I've had many interesting conversations about it, but I really want to know what younger people make of the novel. I'll even shell out a free copy to the first under-30 who asks for one.

[sifi]

So you are selling a specialised literature called 69ers? I would have thought that the Internet would make that sort of thing redundant.

[jonblake]

Er?

Everything will be made clear at this site

[Greeny_Musicchild]

This thread might as well be called "Why do my formative years mean more to me than I imagine they do for this generations youth?". Music festivals were better in 'your day' I presume?

I don't see how anyone can give a truely unbiased opinion on whether anything was better or worse, more meaningful or shallow 20, 30, 40 years ago as so much of music and indeed life is totally subjective.

I'm 22. I'll read your book if you send me it for free. As you can tell, I'm not a huge fan of the idea of the festival experience/music being worth more 40 years ago to you than anything similar possibly could be to me now.

[jonblake]

Blimey, has anyone read my posts on this thread? Once again (despite the provocative title) I do not have a nostalgic preference for events 40 years ago! I have heard the opinions of many over-50s on what I've written and now I really want to know the opinions of younger people.

Interesting what you wrote about 1970, TB, but doesn't that show how expectations have changed?

I'll happily send you a book, Greeny, if you email me your address to blake.blake@ntlworld.com.

[thetime]

of course festivals have changed, the type of people that attend festivals in the last 20 years has changed the most though.

20 years ago you really only had 2 big mainstream festivals in the uk reading and glastonbury. as soon as these really went mainstream late 90s id say and thats when festivals stopped meaning so much(or I just grew up).

its all britpops fault!!!!

[jonblake]

You're doing a hopeless job of talking your book up imo.