I have a contact on the Isle Of Wight called Dawn who I ask if she would write a little on Steve playing at the fest. She was there for the whole weekend and told me all about the fest, but I'll just write the part on Steve's appearence.

Here is her story...

"This festival lark is draining so I decided to be sensible and not go to the festival site until just before Steve Harley was due on the Big Top stage at 4pm.

Luckily when the previous band finished I managed to get myself to the front barrier once again - position perfect for me to once again take in the full experiance of the man orchestrating the band to make astounding music!

It's been awhile since I've seen them but it's wonderful to find that they all seem to get better and better as each tour passes.

I can't remember the exact set list - I'll leave that to the exceptional writing skills of Karen who I believe was there (I wish I'd known. It would have been nice to thank her personally for the wonderful reports that her and Debs write!)

Needless to say the usual Judy Teen (my fave live!) Mr Soft and Make Me Smile went down well with what seemed like a large audience although it was difficult to see from where I was as to how full the Big Top was!

Sebastian as I've probably said before has never been one of my favourite tracks but it's definatly one track that improves live every time purly because the guys are all so in tune with each other.

The new tracks blended brilliantly with the old - Bleeding Hearts was astounding and really ought to have the audience running out to buy copies of the new album immediatly if they've got any musical justibilities at all!

It was also my first glinpse of the Larty Sisters though I don't feel a festival appearance was probably the ideal situation to assess their performance - however they seemed good from what I could tell and certainly seemed to be a positive contribution to the sound of the band.

Steve Harley is the ultimate live performer - He's spell binding and all too soon the performance was over and I was left with that vague deflated feeling. But it was great to see him again and i'll just have to hope that finances permitting I'll get to see him again one day soon."

this is great to read, thanks for putting it up Ray. maybe Karen is plotting a review??? Always great to read her travel pieces!! I look forward to the acoustic tour, hearing Steve deliver the amazing lyrics in the special way only an acoustic setting permits. But the mystery is, who will be the musicians playing with him?