Isle of Wight Festival 1970

Held between 26 -30 August 1970, this was actually the third Isle of Wight Festival and had hosted The Who and Bob Dylan the previous year. But this was easily the biggest; the crowd of 600 000 was around 6 times that of the island's population, making it bigger than Woodstock.

Despite a strong line-up, poor planning and security resulted in crowd trouble (plus financial disaster for the organisers, Fiery Creations). While there were triumphs for The Who, Miles Davis and the newly formed ELP, Jimi Hendrix's set wasn't one of his strongest. Technical problems and overenthusiastic consumption of LSD resulted in an uninspiring performance. Halfway through the set the guitarist told the audience to go and buy hot dogs instead of listening to him. It was to be his last public performance in the UK and he would be dead two weeks later.




 Michael Alden Hedges 
(December 31, 1953 – December 2, 1997) 
 American composer,acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.

In late 1997, Hedges died at the age of 43 in a car accident along State Route 128 in Mendocino County about 100 miles northwest of San Francisco.  According to his manager Hilleary Burgess, he was driving home from San Francisco International Airport after a Thanksgiving vist to a girlfriend in Long Island, New York.  His car apparently skidded off a rain-slicked S-curve and down a 120-foot (37 m) cliff. Hedges was thrown from his car and appeared to have died nearly instantly. His body was found a few days afterward. After his death, his record Oracle won the 1998 Grammy Award for Best New Age Album.  Hedges' unfinished last recordings were brought to completion in the album Torched, with the help of his former manager Hilleary Burgess and friends David Crosby and Graham Nash.