LEONARD COHEN
Isle of Wight, England - (East Afton Farm)
"Isle of Wight Festival"
August 31, 1970 (4 a.m.)

Set:
1. Bird On The Wire
2. So Long, Marianne
3. Let's Renew Ourselves Now (improvisation)
4. You Know Who I Am
5. Dead Song (poem)
6. Lady Midnight
7. They Locked Up A Man (poem)
8. A Person Who Eats Meat (poem)
9. One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong
10. The Stranger Song - solo
11. Tonight Will Be Fine
12. Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye
13. Diamonds In The Mine *
14. Suzanne
15. Sing Another Song, Boys
16. The Partisan
17. Famous Blue Raincoat
18. Seems So Long Ago, Nancy


* with first verse known as "They Gave Me Some Money"

_________________

(4 known source recordings)

[lc700831-1]
source: audience (reel-to-reel) (gs)
length: 80 minutes (complete)

details: edits* between most of the songs (except between "Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye", "Diamonds In The Mine" & "Suzanne", and between "Sing Another Song, Boys" & "The Partisan").

*some are destructive, with the following results:
- beginning of the poem "Dead Song" is clipped (missing two words).
- last notes of flute in "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" are cut.
- beginning of "The Stranger Song" is cut (missing 3 lines; begins with "...well I know that kind of man...").
- speech before "Famous Blue Raincoat" starts abruptly (maybe missing some words?).

sound: inferior to recording 2; huge amount of hiss/white noise, bumps and friction on taper's microphone allthrough the recording which lead us to think there was a continuous thunder at the concert. Some copies (not all?) circulate with incorrect tape speed (run too fast).

fingerprints:
- just before short improvisation preceding "Bird On The Wire", in response to Leonard's "thank you", we can hear taper says: "thank you thank you, hmm okay".
- the taper and someone near him laugh just when Leonard is finishing to recitate "A Person Who Eats Meat".
- someone coughs near taper @ around 15sec of the beginning of "Tonight Will Be Fine" and there are some laughings when Leonard decides to sing the chorus one last time.
- during verse "They Gave Me Some Money", taper laughs just after "... hurry up or they'll be gone".

[lc700831-2]
source: audience (reel-to-reel)
length: 78 minutes (complete)

details: constant hum throughout, heavy bass, and tape crackles.
- Dropout/glitch at the beginning of "Bird On The Wire", word "bird" is cut in "like a bird on the wire...".
- Edit between "Bird On The Wire" & "So Long Marianne" & "Let's Renew Ourselves Now".
- Edit or dropout between "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" & "Diamonds In The Mine".
- Destructive edit at the beginning of "Sing Another Song, Boys"; missing some words of the song prologue: [CUT# "Let's Sing Another Songs Boys, this... #CUT], begins with "...one has grown old and bitter".
- Edit between "Sing Another Song, Boys" & "The Partisan".
- Tape speed problem on "The Partisan", "Famous Blue Raincoat" & "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" (this last one has level variations as well).
- Destructive edit between "The Partisan" & "Famous Blue Raincoat", this last one is cut, begins with "..the night that you planned to go clear, did you ever go clear?".
- Edit between "Famous Blue Raincoat" & "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy".

sound: decent (C+/B-)?.

fingerprints:
- at the very beginning of the concert, after Leonard says "Greetings", taper or someone near him says "...not me".
- taper coughs at about 1 minute into "You Know Who I Am" (just before Leonard begings to sing second verse, after first chorus).
- just before Leonard sings last verse of BOTW, "Like a bird..." a woman near taper laughs & sings "Like...".

[lc700831-3]
source: soundboard
length: 28 minutes (partial)

details: songs #9-13 only. Smooth edit between "Tonight Will Be Fine" & "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye".

After comparing "Tonight Will Be Fine" from this recording with the same song released on Live Songs, and the one broadcasted by the BBC radio in 1995, I came to the conclusion that they all originate from the same source (3). So this is most probably the source used by Sony for the release of "Tonight Will Be Fine" (Live Songs), of "Suzanne" (Isle of Wight Festival CD/DVD), and of "Sing Another Songs, Boys" (Songs of Love & Hate). See 3A.

sound: excellent (A).

[lc700831-3A]
source: soundboard
length: 17 minutes (partial)

details: 3 songs only; #11"Tonight Will Be Fine", #14"Suzanne" and #15"Sing Another Song, Boys", on 3 official releases:

- #11 on Live Songs (©1973 Sony) + digitally remastered on BBC radio 1 broadcast, August 20 1995.
- #14 on Isle of Wight Festival compilation 2CD set (©1995 Sony) & Message To Love - The Isle Of Wight Festival DVD (©1997 Sony), digitally remastered.
- #15 on Songs of Love and Hate (©1971 Sony).

comments: oldest known live performance of "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy". Leonard opened the concert with a short speech ("When I was 7-years old, my father used to pick me to the circus...") and a short improvisation "It's Good To Be Here Alone In Front of Six Hundred Thousand People".

Leonard dedicated "The Partisan" to Joan Baez.

There is maybe a complete soundboard tape (and maybe a complete pro-shot video) of this concert in the Sony archives.

About the audience tapes:
"Practically the entire festival was recorded from the audience, as I know of several people who did this. One of them sold copies of the masters to a guy in the states, these have presumably never been widely traded as few people seem to have the recordings. The other person did limited recordings, just a few tracks here and there of Family and Joni, with a few complete sets, such as the Who, Hendrix, Leonard Cohen and the Doors. There are bound to be other recordings around as well from other sources".
From http://tinpan.fortunecity.com/ebony/546/iow70-info.html.