Bob Dylan: The Concert Series No 17: The Isle of Wight 1969

Posted on May 3, 2025 by Tony Attwood

The Concert Series Episode 17.    Commentary by Tony Attwood.

The Isle of Wight 1969

A list of the concert videos included in this series is given below, and I am now at the stage of trying to fill in the gaps, and there is no bigger gap than not having a video of the Isle of Wight gig, not least because I was there.  But of course, the further back we go the harder it is to find any recording – although for this gig we do have a video of four songs from the event.

So from what I remember the event ran over two (or maybe it was three) days.   For people in England the Isle of Wight is a well-known place – an island with a population of around 140,000 off the south coast of England (and thus with a decent climate) with regular ferries from Southampton, Lymington and Portsmouth.  It is a county in its own right.

This is episode 17 of the series of videos and recordings of Dylan concerts (and one rehearsal) between 1961 and 2025.   A list of the previous articles, each of which focuses on one concert (except the one featuring the rehearsals) is given below.

So the point is that these recordings for “The Concert Series” are collected from the internet and put into chronological order below to help anyone (including me!) to hear what happened to Bob’s concerts (as opposed to individual songs) across time.

Meanwhile, if you feel you have something to say about Bob and his music, and would like to write for Untold Dylan, please do get in touch.  Email me at Tony@schools.co.uk    Also all articles on this site are open for comments, as long as the comments are about the article.

Tony Attwood

Isle of Wight 1969

The festival was held in August 1969 at Wootton Creek, and reports suggest maybe 150,000 people attended to hear Bob Dylan, The Who, Free, Joe Cocker, the Moody Blues and other bands of the day.  It marked Bob’s full return from retirement.

As I recall from this long ago there was a real spirit of the fact that we were the peaceful people who could attend these events, have fun, relax and even tidy up afterwards.  I can’t recall the name of the lady I went with, but I wish I could.

I’ve put up two videos from the gig and a second short video as well just in case any of these vanish from the public domain at any time.  For one thing I think the gig was important in terms of getting Bob back on stage, and the because I particularly like to record this memory from my youth within the series.   I like the fact that as a student I was out, exploring and taking in the major events of the day.  I don’t have any memorabilia from these events, so this film is rather nice for me.  Holding on to bits of the past seems increasingly important as the years go by.

There are only four songs on the video – and of course if you know of any other openly available videos of this event please do forward them or let me know where they are available.   The songs are….

  • I threw it all away
  • Highway 61 Revisited
  • One too many mornings
  • I Pity the poor immigrant

And just in case the video above vanishes here is a copy of Highway 61 on its own.

Bob Dylan: The Concert Series 

The (very personal) Absolute Highlights series

This series was completely different from and separate from the current concert series, but if you are interested in hearing very specific songs from the past, it might be of interest.

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