Sunday at the Isle of Wight Festival 2024

Green Day were given the task of closing a weekend of great music (and great weather)

I will remember Sunday at the Isle of Wight Festival 2024 for some time.

The setting was about as good as it gets, with the sun shining and a big-name headliner lined up to close to the festival. The prospect of Green Day's set was particularly exciting as they had never played the Isle of Wight Festival before.

It was clear that several thousand people had arrived with a chair-based-strategy to ensure they made it to the evening. This involved plonking themselves down with a camping chair and an umbrella and not moving for 10 hours. I have no objection to this, particularly as there is a rule about not setting up a camping chair at the front of the crowd.

​However, it did make navigation a little tricky. As we wiggled our way through the crowd we frequently found ourselves hitting a camping-chair-cul-de-sac. Eventually we realised that the only option was to head for a footpath, even if it wasn't exactly in the right direction.

Chair-city was full of umbrellas on Sunday afternoon at the Isle of Wight Festival 2024

The chair dwellers and the minglers (Ed: Great band name) were served up an afternoon of pop music in the sunshine, including McFly and Zara Larsson. I impressed my fellow attendees with the fun fact that Zara Larsson is currently achieving a similar number of monthly streams on Spotify as the Rolling Stones. Another fun fact is that she previously played at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2017.

It was also the second time McFly had played at the Isle of Wight Festival, with the previous being 2009 when they must have been about 11 years old.

Sunday delivered blue skies and confirmed my claim that 'the sun always shines on the Isle of Wight'

Other acts on the lineup on Sunday included Toyah and Robert, Picture This and Caity Baser.

Getting our Phil of great music

For us, there was something of a difference in opinion as to what we should watch on Sunday. This hadn't happened on previous days, when my fellow attendees had generally been happy to be dragged to wherever I fancied. 

And so, I found myself half way through a crunching set from Nothing But Thieves when one of my festival friends politely asked if we could go and watch a Phil Collins tribute act.

The gear change here was a little hard to comprehend, but after a couple more songs I agreed that it would only be fair to head for the Electro Love tent.

What I didn't quite bank on was that the Main Stage and Electro Love stage are basically at either end of the site. I also hadn't remembered quite how large the site is. As we finally approached the Electro Love venue, via camping-chair-city and everything in between, we realised that the tribute Phil Collins had long since finished his set. We had walked so far that I expected to be given a medal by the people who organise Walk The Wight.

Simple pleasures

We did an about turn at this point and headed back towards the main stage, with a short detour to listen to a Clash tribute act (more my kind of thing than Phil Collins).

The next treat at the main stage was Simple Minds, who last appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2009. This seemed like another intelligent booking, as it delivered some massive sunset singalongs. It also had a very different tone and - I assume - quite a different fan base to Green Day, Zara Larsson and Nothing But Thieves. I've said before that I am a big fan of varied line-ups, which helps ensure that the Isle of Wight Festival has a wide age range in the crowd.

A great day for Green Day

Sunday felt like the busiest day at Isle of Wight Festival 2024

Finally, it was time for Green Day to close the festival - a responsibility that has recently fallen to Muse, Robbie Williams and Duran Duran. 

I consider myself to be only a moderate fan of Green Day, but I had remembered a conversation with my brother from about 20 years earlier. He is also not a mega-fan but had seen them at a festival and concluded that they were the highlight of the weekend.

My fellow festival attendees didn't share this opinion and made a bit of a face when I said I was keen to get near the front. A few harsh words were said and I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to Darren and Ian for repeatedly using the phrase "old farts".

We decided that the best strategy at this point was to split up the party. Two other friends were big Green Day fans, so I arranged to meet them whilst Ian and Darren headed off to see a nine piece funk band called Beatroot and Jo Whiley's 90s Anthems.

Green Day certainly didn't disappoint. We had a ring of fire onstage, frequent flame bursts, an inflatable aircraft floating across the audience, a guest vocal spot from an exuberant teenager who was plucked from the crowd - plus the full catalogue of Green Day's biggest hits. 

By the time they closed with Good Riddance, we had worked our way quite close to the front and got the full effect of the explosion of confetti (is it still called confetti when it's not at a wedding?)

The fireworks began and Perfect Day began to play as we made our way home.

Thanks to everyone who made the Isle of Wight Festival 2024 happen. Let's hope there are many more nights like this to come.

Green Day's set included an inflatable plane which drifted across the crowd