Stones to end festival with 'bang'

(Friday June 08, 2007)

More than 30,000 music fans will be heading to the Isle of Wight this weekend to see the Rolling Stones headline their first UK festival appearance in more than 30 years.

This year's event is the sixth since the festival was relaunched 30 years after its heyday when it attracted up to one million hippies to the island.

The Isle of Wight festivals at the end of the 1960s were a series of legendary events featuring Bob Dylan, The Who, Free, The Doors, Joni Mitchell and Jefferson Airplane, culminating in 1970 with 600,000 hippies descending on the island to see Jimi Hendrix perform his penultimate concert.

The rolling Rolling Stones Bigger Bang Vancouver

Since re-starting the festival, world-renowned acts such as Coldplay, The Who, David Bowie, Robert Plant, Lou Reed, Foo Fighters and REM have played.

John Giddings, of festival organisers Solo, said: "We would never have attempted to restart the festival without having such a strong history - the Isle of Wight was the Woodstock of Europe.

"I saw Jimi Hendrix there, and was proud to be offered the chance to contribute to the island's musical heritage. The unique location brings out the best in artists; it relaxes them and contributes to some stunning performances.

Rolling Stones Don't wanna go home.Bigger Bang Photo Session


The Rolling Stones, whose last UK festival was Knebworth Fair in 1976, kicked off their European tour in Belgium this week with a 30-mile traffic jam of fans queueing to see them in the town of Werchter.

But the critics and 33,000 fans were wowed by the old-timers' "A Bigger Bang" tour which will feature 30 gigs across Europe including performances in Belgrade, Serbia, and in St Petersburg, Russia, which the band has never visited before.

In addition to making stops in Eastern Europe, the band will play in Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland and Scandinavia.

The Stones' previous tour became the highest-grossing in concert history in November 2006, netting the band more than £50 million last year and putting them at the top of Forbes' annual list of music's biggest earners.