Isle of Wight Festival exhibition launches celebrating headliners David Bowie, Amy Winehouse, Bob Dylan and more…

The Isle of Wight Festival exhibition Experience 25 was launched at The O2 in London on Wednesday night, but what’s it all about?

Legendary promoter John Giddings, the man behind the British festival since its revival in 2002, was in attendance alongside Ray Foulk who created the original events between 1968 and 1970.

The exhibition celebrates the festival’s entire iconic history with an incredible archive of images and footage on display featuring Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, Joni Mitchell and The Rolling Stones.

There are also a number of newspaper clippings which show the resistance to the original event from locals.

During the special evening, John and Ray shared their own special memories from the festival.

Recalling how in 2007 Amy Winehouse almost never joined Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones for their iconic duet on ‘Ain't Too Proud to Beg’, John said: “In 2007 I came up with the idea of putting Amy Winehouse onstage with The Rolling Stones. I thought the hardest bit would be to get Mick Jagger to let Amy up there. So I went to him and he jumped at the opportunity… but then I went to Amy who said she could never do it; she was too nervous! It took me about half an hour to persuade her to do it but when you see the result of it… it was amazing”.

Ray spoke about the significance of Bob Dylan agreeing to headline in 1969; a performance which gave the festival cultural significance.

He said: “There’s another guy who was far more important than any of us, that made all this possible, without whom none of this would have happened. A certain gentleman who was living in Woodstock at the time, otherwise known as Robert Zimmerman who became Bob Dylan."

“Bob Dylan is a name that is very often forgotten about these days when you think about the great stars that we’ve been looking at today. It was Dylan coming to the Isle of Wight that made this thing possible without Bib Dylan in 1969 I don’t think there would have been a second Isle of Wight Festival. Of course, once we got him under contract it was like winning the lottery.

“Now you imagine today, to put it in perspective, if some young guys of 23 and 24 were putting on a festival in a field somewhere and they were looking for artists and they managed to sign Taylor Swift, what would happen then? It was a bit like that. It’s very hard to imagine how important it was at that time that Dylan came and got this thing kicked off in the way that he did.”

Among the guests was The Kooks frontman Luke Pritchard and the highlight of the night was when the winner of the Isle of Wight Festival’s Most Magic Moment was revealed.

The competition allowed festival goers to vote for their favourite moment in the festival’s history. David Bowie took the top spot for his final UK performance which happened at the Isle of Wight Festival in the summer of 2004.