In response...

I didn’t know there’d been an Isle of Wight in 69. I thought 70 had been the first. My old delicatessen acquaintance Esme was the result of a meeting at a train station of a man and a woman both en route to Isle of Wight. Also, I now have a close musical acquaintance who hails from Isle of Wight and played at least one festival there (not the Hendrix one I believe). Hendrix’s Wight ‘70(?) 20 minute Red House, which was largely the basis of John Peel’s questioning along the lines of ‘what’s the big fuss about this guy all about?’, featured on a mix tape delivered by hand to Agent Lone Wolf circa 1994, and is thought not to have raised serious emotions in said agent.

I believe Glastonbury Tor acts as the transmitter for the sound waves over the Atlantic in 2009. I wonder if a similar transmitter was utilised at Isle of Wight. Perhaps the strange wires (fence?) in the far reaches of the field, as seen in background on live Hendrix recording, acted as an amplification system. Then perhaps the natural bowl shape of the festival site acted something like the Marske, East Cleveland concrete sound wave amplification dish used to listen in to conversations over the North Sea, and bounce the waves against the atmosphere and over the ocean.

I wonder why a West coast location, by the pacific, was used to transmit waves meeting in the mid atlantic. Perhaps the waves actually form a donut ring around the planet, crossing both oceans?

The Monterey Pop Festival (67?) must have been a forerunner to both. Perhaps it linked up with Hyde Park, but I’d have to check dates.