So, we’re back from the UK, and the amazing Isle of Wight festival!

And we’re happy to say – Dorothy was right. There IS... NO place like home.

Basically, the IOW Festival (June 13-15 2008, Newport, IOW) is a Punk-Rock festival – lots of noise, lots of drums and bass sounds, amplified from every which direction you can imagine it coming from – with one small arena devoted to folk-style music. That’s where we performed – and where we took refuge during most of the hours we spent on this gigantic location. Imagine Jacobs Ladder multiplied about 20 times – in human numbers, and even more in geographical area!

Stomach-turning Luna Park style rides all over the place, food stalls of every kind you can imagine, merchandise stalls with tons of jewelry, clothing, hats, bizarre ornaments and paraphernalia everywhere, probably something like 1000 portable toilet stalls spread over tons of locations, big-top circus tents with more performances and dancing arenas… and 70,000 people roaming from place to place.

If you want to picture the arena in which we performed in, picture the Chai-shop at Jacob’s Ladder, with a small stage inside this red, oriental styled tent. It was really a lot of fun – we had two sets of 45 minutes each (on different days). Made some friends among the many musicians that performed before and after us, sold a few CDs (with one very nice compliment – the manager of the Chai-shop, who heard ALL the performances at this venue, and bought only ONE CD during the whole festival – ours!! J ), and simply had a great time. No big expectations of meeting any big producers – that isn’t what we went for. It was a compliment to us, just to be invited to perform there. And, we got to see Sting perform on the big stage - from about 400 meters away! Couldn’t (and didn’t want to) get any closer.

If asked to perform at this particular festival again, we would have to give it some thought before saying yes… but it sure was an experience!

As fun as it was, our own Jacob's Ladder Festival is MUCH, MUCH more suited to us folkies!!