That was why I went there. And he was absolutely amazing. Absolutely out of this world. On another planet. You know, Hendrix that was just blistering. He put stuff together so perfectly off the top of his head, you know? Well, I stand up next to a mountain I chop it down with the edge of my hand Well, I stand up next to a mountain Chop it down with the edge of my hand The bit that I do remember is a firework going up at the end of Hendrix, when it looked like the stage was on fire, and it went up into the roof of the stage, and there was clouds of smoke billowing out. And somebody's on the mic, saying, "The stage is on fire, the stage is on fire. "Can we have a fire appliance here? The stage is on fire." Sort of this droning voice going on. And my heart sank at that point. I thought, "Well, this is it. "The stage is going to burn down. This is the end of it." This is the end Beautiful friend Outside the perimeter fence, the number of disgruntled people unwilling to pay entry was growing by the day. As makeshift shantytowns emerged, the area became known as Desolation Row. Everybody had gone into these trees that were all overgrown and higgledy-piggledy, and they built themselves little shelters in there. So you had the place teeming with Hobbits that were all living in the lane. And in fact, you had a better view of the stage from the hill than you did from the enclosure, where you had to pay. So we put out a flyer about this, then all hell broke loose. The hippy ideology of free music was about to come face to face with the commercial reality of the Isle of Wight, and the fence became a potent symbol of that divide. You will not be allowed in without a ticket, so please have a ticket. Have it ready to show the stewards. There was this anarchic sort of feeling about the whole thing, where people were saying, "Well, this is a rip-off. "Tear the walls down. It should be free." They weren't taking into account that perhaps the whole thing cost a lot of money to put on. We're coming in the shadow of Woodstock here in , which had been declared free and had been thought to be an amazingly cool event, because it was free, and that we were uncool because we weren't free. So there was that comparison some would make, including one of the people that spoke from the stage. I've been to Woodstock, and I dug it very much. I've been to about ten internet radioing Musics, and I love music. I just think one thing - this Music business is becoming a psychedelic concentration camp! It was like a sort of a cattle market inside the walls, and then there were all these French anarchists saying, "Tear down the walls!" It really was like the barbarians attacking the gate. It was somewhere between chaos, anarchy and Monty Python. No reason to get excited The thief he kindly spoke We've got no money for the artists! What are we going to do? I could see it from the stage. You'd see it burning in the distance. You've got to understand, it's, like, half a mile away. But even when I finished a song, I could hear the Celtic nations going at it. I could tell.