Randy et al,
That helicopter incident is particularly significant when you consider that
the IOW Festival, 1970, was the biggest live entertainment event in the
history of the world: roadies who worked at both were unanimous that it was
bigger than Woodstock. Now, the impression that I get from all publications
is that there was some hostility between the crowd and Joni that day. This
is ABSOLUTELY not true. I was sitting inside the arena and in a good
position to feel the general mood of the crowd, and I can assure you that
the only hostility was directed toward the helicopter pilot flying overhead
and NOT at Joni. 95% of the crowd did not even notice the Yogi Bear
incident( he had no mike and was not centre stage) and more than 99% had no
sympathy for him. By the time, Joni struck into "Big Yellow Taxi" the
helicopter had gone and everybody was listening to Joni.
It's a great pity that there is all of this negativity in the reporting
about the day that Joni played in front of the biggest audience in her life,
because, on the day, apart from the helicopter incident, which was an
unfortunate interruption that could have happened to anyone, and the Yogi
Bear stage invasion (which almost nobody noticed), there was just a huge
amount of love for Joni.
Ian
>Ian Scott wrote:
>
>Unfortunately, until now, I've only ever seen Joni perform live once, when
I
>
>> was in my teens and she performed at the Isle of Wight Festival (an
English
>> equivalent of Woodstock). I remember her performance was marred by a
noisy
>> helicopter flying overhead, which Joni could nether see nor hear. This
>> resulted in 100,000+ people booing, jeering and shouting "go away" at the
>> helicopter. Sadly, Joni thought the boos were aimed at her and started to
cry.
>> My heart and that of the whole audience went out to her. I wonder if Joni
ever
>> found out the real reason why people were booing that day? I hope so.
Anyway,
>> this leads me to my question. there were two big Isle of Wight Festivals,
>> August '69 when Bob Dylan topped the bill and August '70 when Jimi
Hendrix was
>> t
