IoW boss John Giddings reveal the secret
Andrew Trendell

07:23 4th June 2015

After another year of rumour, many expected Fleetwood Mac to headline Glastonbury 2015. Alas, it was not to be - instead, they were booked as an exclusive for Isle Of Wight Festival. How did that happen? Well, the secret is now out. 

Isle Of Wight Festival is set to kick off next week, with a massive bill of headliners that also includes Blur, Pharrell Williams, The Prodigy and Black Keys. It was earlier revealed that the Isle Of Wight headliners have more No.1s between them than any other festival. Now IoW boss John Giddings has revealed how he came to have such a massive line-up, topped by the 'Don't Stop' rock legends. 

"Michael Eavis said, 'How did you get Fleetwood Mac?'," Giddings told Music Week. "I said, I paid them!"

Giddings continued: "Glastonbury are in a privileged position, whereby they sell out in advance. They could book my granny and still have a festival. The rest of us are still in the realms of having to book a decent line-up and make it attractive to people and want them to come."

He also added that the massive names of this year, put on extra pressure for 2016: "The trouble is as soon as you finalise a line-up and see people’s reaction when they find out it’s incredible, you start stressing about what you’re going to book the following year and whether you can top it or not."

One thing we can safely assume is that Ed Sheeran probably won't be headlining next year, after Giddings slammed him as 'boring'

Isle Of Wight Festival 2015 takes place from 12-14 June. For tickets and information, visit here

Meanwhile, Fleetwood Mac last week kicked off their massive UK tour. Read our review of their first show at The O2 in London here, and for tickets and information about the rest of their tour visit here

  • 14. 'Someone's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight': Probably the closest the band have ever come to sounding like Elvis, this is a bluesy, tongue-in-cheek ode to the youthful itch for aggression, from the band's early incarnation.

  • 13. 'Planets Of The Universe': It's testament to the sheer brilliance of Rumours that this song, recorded as a demo during the making of that album, never made it any further. Thankfully, it was not only re-recorded in 2000 for Stevie Nicks' solo album, but its original demo version was also revealed a few years later.

  • 12. 'Go Your Own Way': The lyrics, which are somehow both liberating and stifling, document the frustrating contradiction of Lindsey Buckingham's relationship with Stevie Nicks - to an uncomfortably personal degree. Every time the lyric "shacking up is all you want to do" came up onstage, Nicks admits, "I wanted to go over and kill him. "

  • 11. 'Angel': Inspired by the Welsh mythological folk story of Rhiannon - which Stevie Nicks only became aware of after writing the song of the same name. Despite its opaque literary backstory though, its lyrics are poignantly simple: "When you were good baby, you were very, very good. / I still look up when you walk in the room."

  • 10. 'Over My Head': There's something beautifully soporific about this song's reverberating organ, which lurks modestly beneath Christine McVie's calmly defiant vocals. Though she's never confirmed it, the lyrics are said to refer to McVie's troubles marriage with the band's bassist John McVie - which ended a year after this song was recorded.

  • 9. 'Say You Love Me': Another of Christine McVie's biggest triumphs, 'Say You Love Me', with its punchy chorus and driving rhythm, helped the band's eponymous 1975 album to sell over 8 million copies worldwide.

  • 8. 'Gypsy': The story that inspired this song is so moving it's probably best you just hear it in Stevie Nicks' words. "Before Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey [Buckingham] and I had no money, so we had a king-size mattress, but we just had it on the floor. Just that and a lamp on the floor, and that was it - there was a certain calmness about it. To this day, when I'm feeling cluttered, I will take my mattress off of my beautiful bed, wherever that may be, and put it outside my bedroom, with a table and a little lamp."

  • 7. 'Oh Daddy': Christine McVie's lyrics have been rumoured to be about both Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham. It's not really important though - in many ways the song's subject comes a distant second to the narrator's crushing lack of self-worth, summed up in the opening lyrics, "Oh Daddy, You know you make me cry / How can you love me? I don't understand why."

  • 6. 'Landslide': Stevie Nicks' affectingly raspy vocals sometimes struggle to scrape the bottom notes - and somehow that just adds to the song's effect. As if she sat down and made it up on the spot, with no thought of range. It boldly tackles ageing, regret and loss, and needs only a simple guitar melody to pin it together.

  • 5. 'Rhiannon': Sung in barely more than a beautiful, croaky whisper by Stevie Nicks - until the soaring chorus comes in that is - the song was written in ten minutes by Nicks before she joined Fleetwood Mac. Inspired by a novel called Triad she bought in an airport, she regularly used to introduce it with, "This is a song about an old Welsh witch."

  • 'The Chain': We're not sure we can ever forgive Formula One for hijacking this song's riff with such zeal that it's become synonymous with the incredibly dull sport of auto racing. Nonetheless, it's an angry, anthemic tirade against a failing relationship - "Damn you love, damn your lies" - with one of the best bass riffs in music.

  • 3. 'Songbird': Heartbreaking enough to stop you in your tracks, the song was famously covered by Eva Cassidy , but it's Christine McVie's original that really hits home the sense of unrecquited adoration: "I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before."

  • 2. 'You Make Loving Fun': This song revels in its own naive sense of optimism - its lyrics speak of a newly found belief in magic and miracles, but veiled beneath a heavy sense of precariousness.

  • 1. 'Dreams': From the moment that opening drum riff gives way to the wobbly guitar, this song has you right in the palm of its hand. When Stevie Nicks' voice soars into the falsetto of "It's only right", it's like a stunning, tear-inducing punch in the heart.


Photo: Wenn