Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Isle of Wight Festival, Afton Down, Isle of Wight, Britain, 8-27-1970 to 8-30-1970 - 8-30-1970: Part 1: Free

This album is the first of the last day of the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. As such, the track numbering starts at one again and the coloring of the text on the album cover is different (yellow for all the albums from this day).

The good news is that I have the entire set from the band Free here, in excellent sound. The band news is there were four acts that played before Free on this day, and I don't have any music from any of them at all. The four acts were :Good News, Kris Kristofferson, Ralph McTell, and Heaven. Don't feel bad if you never heard of Good News or Heaven, as they're both very obscure. 

Kris Kristofferson played earlier in the festival, but his set was badly received, in part due to problems with the sound system. So he was given another chance on this day. His music was much better received this time. Folk-rocker Ralph McTell also went over well, according to the press accounts.

That takes us to Free. They had just released the album "Fire and Water," containing their biggest hit, "All Right Now." The popularity surged. The album reached Number Two in the British charts, when their last two albums hadn't charted at all. The crowd was still near its maximum size of 600,000 to 700,000 people, so it was the biggest moment of Free's career so far.

Murray Lerner, the director of "Message to Love," the music documentary of the festival, later said about Free, "To me they were a revelation. I had never heard them before. I thought they were fantastic – their energy, their sensibility. And 'All Right Now' to me was really a thrilling song."

The sound quality is excellent, because the whole set was officially released as the album "Live at the Isle of Wight 1970."

This album is 49 minutes long.

001 talk (Free)
002 Ride on a Pony (Free)
003 talk (Free)
004 Woman (Free)
005 talk (Free)
006 The Stealer (Free)
007 talk (Free)
008 Be My Friend (Free)
009 Mr. Big (Free)
010 talk (Free)
011 Fire and Water (Free)
012 I'm a Mover (Free)
013 The Hunter (Free)
014 All Right Now (Free)
015 talk (Free)
016 Crossroads (Free)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15596235/IsleofWghtFestivlAftnDwnIsleofWghtBrtain__8-30-1970_Pt1Free.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for sharing the image on this page.
    It was taken by my Father-in-Law Charles Everest, who was there at the event that weekend.
    More of his photos from the event can be found at the link below and are all ©cameronlife
    www.cameronlife.co.uk

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