The Last Great Event
July 9, 2010

Isle of Wight, 1970. I flew there on an old army prop plane and had one day to roam down a street in some town, Yarborough I think. I purchased an antique pharmacy jar with voice jujubes written on it. Donovan let me use his gypsy wagon as a backstage dressing room. People camped. The wagon had a coal stove. The fumes were unbearable. The camps everywhere had fires and stoves. I waited and waited. No one wanted to follow The Who. I know Jim Morrison refused. I said, Ok. I think I couldn't stand the fumes any longer and it was so cold. I met the guys from The Who and Keith Moon said he would introduce me. After their amazing set, he did, and handed me his drumstick. I was terrified.

Recently I met Chris Weston, the photographer of "The Last Great Event" ( http://www.cwiw.co.uk ) who was with the crew and remembered me going into the sound and light area and crying before I went on. I haven't a memory of that, but I have no reason to doubt it.

Dawn ~ I performed, just me and my guitar, sitting on a low straight back chair. Everyone out there had gone to sleep. It was my job to give them a different dream. As I sang, they awoke, one by one, flowers in the fields. Heads up, standing and cheering at the end. 600,000 of them. I returned to the mainland on hovercraft. On that ride back, with so many kindred spirit, I wrote "The Good Book". A few weeks following my dawning set, I had two top ten albums in England.

Poor little hairy kids out on their own
They run to the festival to show that they were one
They've fallen in love with all human kind
So tell them you love them so they don't change their mind
~ The Good Book


My Dear Ones,

On the stage at the Isle of Wight 2010 I was visited by my angel. I love when that happens! I was singing with the Medina Choir doing the addendum part to lay down, (which was created on another stage a few years ago during a different visitation when I added in "Give Peace A Chance" by John Lennon). So now, I am breaking into "all we are saying is give peace a chance… lay down, lay down… and without planning, with complete trust I began the "angel watching over you" chant. The tingle went up my spine and the tears came to the eyes. Not only mine. I think Jimi and John were there. Oh, I hope someday that will happen again, but of course, it won't. Not that particular magic. That was Isle of Wight magic.

"There is a thread that joins each to the other, brother to the sister, sister to the brother"

And then it will be carried on out into the audience (when they get to hear the recording of "Angel Watching Over You") "there is a thread" being sung over give peace a chance/lay down. I know it seems cacophonic, but it works. Of course, it was the angels idea. So then, we'll have the "thread that joins each to the other, brother to the sister, sister to the brother" taken to other places around the globe. Central Park, NYC. The Mayday Festival in Holland… when will they ever win the soccer world cup. They always almost get there. I have a great affinity for the Netherlands as you may know. Some connection for certain. There is a thread… a free festival in London, and so on. There's a thread that joins each to the other.

So the Isle of Wight is fresh and no it wasn't out on the same field. There were ferris wheels, whirligig rides, people coming for spectacle, performers being shot out of a cannon. Effects and lights. A full blown out NYC skyline erected on stage for Jay-Z. Sir Paul heavily guarded. Barricades. But then, there was just me, making magic, wizard style for Pink and Jay-Z people. Who would have thought it would be me. What are these angels thinking. I am so grateful for the opportunity to go back to the Isle of Wight. As I think back, I flew home to New York and sat with Jimi Hendrix. It was that trip, his last festival. There are tributes all over the Isle of Wight to Jimi in unlikely places. Outside of the Dimbola Lodge, the historic home of Julia Margaret Cameron, one of the first portrait photographers from the 19th century. John Giddings, a patron for the resurrection of her home (which was almost torn down), and the organizer of the Isle of Wight festival, brought me over and introduced me on stage. No drumstick.

Dr. Brian Hinton, the historian who's guest I was at Dimbola Lodge, the day after the festival, filled me in on Julia Margaret Cameron's life and works. As he led Beau Jarred and I through her rooms and walls filled with her portraits, there in this nearly demolished and now restored jewel, I met Guy Portelli, the sculptor, who's done a Jimi Hendrix and is now going to be doing a Melanie. I am honored. We sat and had the most amazing cakes and tea in the teahouse part of the lodge.

Roadburn Cafe was born out of a want to share some road stories and talk about the unique food experiences. I think the first entry had to do with Tim Horton's Donuts, so now I'll bring it all home with the cakes. The sponges, the cremes and bumble-berry tarts, oh here's the menu. To sit in this lovely tearoom with the dedicated group, dedicated to what? A higher ground. A refuge to some. Works is progress. The dreams of artists, authentic lives. Looking out onto the garden where a bronze of Jimi Hendrix stands, head down, guitar in hand. If he were here, we'd be having tea and cakes and wondering, what is time and where does it go… and maybe we would come up with a song about the last great event, or the one to come. Beau could tell him, and perhaps show him his new guitar technique. Maybe we would just sip tea and eat cakes before posing in front of the statue. Wipe crumbs off our faces before Charles Everest or Chris Weston snapped us 40 years on. My dear ones still.

With life love and dreams,
Melanie

P.S. Thank you to Eve Cook who made it all happen, and shlepped us everywhere along the tiny roads along the Isle of Wight. Thanks to the Dimbola Lodge teahouse staff for the cakes and hospitality to the intensely enthusiastic Brian, to Guy and Chris, the innkeepers at Frenchman's Cove, to Susan and Chris for putting up with our crazy schedule and making us full english breakfast at 13:00 and making us feel at home. The Medina Choir and choir director Hannah Redman who helped bring on the angels. And finally to John Giddings for inviting me to the 40th anniversary of the last great event.

Wow, Melanie, what a great surprise to wake up to on this day of the Grand Final, thanks for supporting us, i am as all my fellow countrymen bitten by the Orange bug. Apart from that my heart rejoices in how you are reaching out to us and telling us what is in your heart.

I saw on YouTube the Angel in human form, singing and believing it, on the stage at The Isle of Wight.

Thank you for your message, reminding us how we are all in this together and about the thread that joins each to the other....

Thanks!!!! So much.

Melanie; You sew the words so beautifully!


xoxo
-Bill

Thanks Melanie for a good read and Good Luck Today Dia and folks in Holland and well good luck to you too Robert in Spain ..

Thanks Melanie; wonderful words. The photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron are truly wonderful. Her husband was also a great man and with his long white beard and hair he posed as Merlin. She was one of the fabled Pattle sisters noted for their beauty and intelligence. Other Isle of White residents included poet Alfred Lord Tennison and painter Augustus John, not to mention Queen Victoria at Osborne House.

By the way, when are you going to play Glastonbury again? Not the festival (which has lost its soul), somewhere in the town perhaps, or nearby? I saw you in 1971 singing Shine the Living Light about the place at dawn on Summer Solstice at Glastonbury Fayre in Pilton. I saw you there again years later when you asked if there was anyone there who had been there in 1971 - a couple of us shouted, but I don't think you heard. There are a lot of strange people there now but the place is still very special. Just make a private visit without telling anyone if you want. Walk the three hills and Bushy Coombe and tune in where St Joseph of Arimathea and the druids tuned in before you.

The world needs you Melanie more than ever.

Hello All,

I just need to let you all know that Melanie gave the wrong website for Chris Weston, it should be http://www.cwiw.co.uk/. The one Melanie gave previously is for a wildlife photographer not quite connected to the Isle of Wight Festival.

Also I would like to thank Melanie for such a beautifully written log and I will also write soon about my experience of the whole time Melanie was over here.

Thanks again, Eve Cook

You are the greatest Melanie,I was pall bearer at my Aunts funeral last Sunday. Wow, what good things come out of a funeral. I learned so much from this experience. I love you!