A year after the Woodstock festival, Mitchell and many of her musical peers traveled to England to perform at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. The lineup included Jimi Hendrix and The Who. However, the peace and love of Woodstock didn't come to England, and Mitchell felt the brunt of it. According to the Guardian, the festival was a terrible experience for her.
Joni Mitchell was asked to move her performance from the evening to the mid-afternoon. By this time, the crowd of 600,000 people (more than double what was expected) had grown agitated by the strong security presence, the expensive ticket prices, and even at performers arriving in expensive clothing and cars. During her performance, Mitchell stopped to ask the crowd to calm down, which only increased hostility. While musicians who used electric instruments could overpower the rowdy audience with sound, Mitchell was armed with just an acoustic guitar, a dulcimer, and a piano. At one point, a man named Yogi Joe, who had been sitting by Mitchell's piano, grabbed the mic and attempted to speak, only to be led away by security. This agitated the crowd even further. Mitchell said of the festival's organizers, "they fed me to the beast."
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