Saturday, August 29th, 1970

The Who make their second appearance at the Isle Of Wight Festival, with one of the greatest ever line-ups including performances by Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. The promoters envision it as a British version of Woodstock. However an attempt to raise money to pay for the festival by keeping out non-paying attendees with fences and guard dogs turns into chaos as 600,000 people, nine-tenths of them not paying, descend on the music event. The fences are soon trampled, fans from France and Germany get blamed and the anger of those who demand a "free festival" reaches all the way to the stage. Some performers are booed or interrupted by hecklers. Keith Moon spends an hour talking to folk artist Melanie to calm her down and get her to perform after hearing she is too nervous to take the stage. Fortunately for the well-being of the hecklers, none of them interfere with The Who's performance that begins around 3am Sunday morning. The Who roar through a two-hour set featuring a live Tommy. John wears a specially made skeleton suit (so tight he is unable to sit down while wearing it). Pete takes two things with him from the festival; the image of fences being torn down that will appear in the songs "Let's See Action" and "Put The Money Down" and the question of the purpose of music festivals that will become a theme in Lifehouse.

The Who's set is released on CD as The Who Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970 and as the film Listening To You: The Who at the Isle Of Wight, both in 1996. As for the Who themselves, they, minus John and Keith, will not appear at another Isle of Wight festival until 2004.