Isle of Wight Festival 13/14/15 June 2008

This weekend took me down memory lane as I rejoined the music business for a few days and we had a fabulous weekend. Many years ago, I produced Sting singing Roxanne on his own, and inspired by the programme "Three men in another boat" where Griff Rhys Jones sailed into Cowes and got backstage at the festival when the Stones were on last summer, Julia said the Police are headlining this year - and I thought I'd see if we could get on the guest list as I used to in the old days.

Sting agreed to my request and also said that he would be happy to see us for a few minutes before they went on stage, which he did.

We sailed over Thursday night to get tucked into Island Harbour which is right next to the festival, and set off on Friday to get our passes. What was a shame is that this year they had closed the footpath along the river, so we had to take the long way by road, and actually having backstage passes, meant we had to walk right around the festival and back in from Newport - about two miles instead of one, so we did some walking!

We were allowed in before the crowds and had quite a high VIP status allowing us to drink in the artists bar and have our own viewing area to the side of the stage. On Friday we saw the Kaiser Chiefs.

The weather stayed wonderful all weekend. Saturday, we had lunch at the Royal Corinthian - taking the water taxi to Cowes. Saturday night we saw the Zutons and The Sex Pistols.

Sunday was the big day with the Police headlining and our meeting with Sting. We spent the afternoon waiting to get information, and learned that the band were literally flying in about an hour before and flying straight out after the gig. Around 1830, one of his team came out to see us and our passes were upgraded from the wristband. This was truly amazing and with these passes we could go on the stage itself (the back bit) and into the dressing rooms - in fact just about anywhere. Where the security guys had all been defensive before, suddenly everywhere we went we had access - it was just fab.

We don't know what's more amazing: looking out at 55,000 people from on stage or having a quiet chat with Sting in his dressing room. I have actually played to 2500 people and been backstage at many gigs when I was in the business, so I wasn't totally phased, but it was still pretty awesome.

Check out the photos section for loads more pics.

We were actually on the stage at the side as the Police went on, and then we discovered we could get into an even more exclusive area to the right of the stage - where most of the time it was just us two. The band were great and we really enjoyed the gig.

Monday we stopped at Shepards Wharf and had lunch at the Royal Corinthian again, and enjoyed the sunshine. We then sailed back over to Haslar and ended a truly fantastic weekend.