Joni Mitchell’s Perfect Response to Heckling Fans Telling Her To Smile

Amidst the restless crowd and bad drugs of the 1970 Isle of Wight festival, much of Joni Mitchell’s set was overshadowed by her tense interactions with the crowd, including Mitchell’s perfect response to fans telling her to smile. (Because nothing makes you not want to smile quite like a stranger telling you that you should.)

Mitchell’s infamous set wasn’t unique to the “Blue” singer. The entire festival was peppered with conflict and class division as the organizers’ attempt to mimic the previous year’s Woodstock ‘69 fell flat. But in a way, the songwriter’s challenging set was the perfect snapshot of her attitude toward on- and off-stage life.

Joni Mitchell’s Response to Heckling Fans

The 1970 Isle of Wight music festival was a paradox at best and disaster at worst. Although organizers framed the event as something akin to Woodstock 1969, attendees felt the ticket prices, security measures, and artist payouts went against the “peace, love, and anti-capitalism” ethos of festivals past. Just as tensions were boiling to a fever pitch, Joni Mitchell unexpectedly took the stage for a mid-afternoon set.

Mitchell, who originally planned to play in the evening, later said she switched her set times because “I have a feminine cooperative streak. So, I said yes, and they fed me to the beast.” That beast included disgruntled acid droppers and feisty music fans who heckled, drummed, and generally disrupted Mitchell’s performance. Barely three songs into her set, Mitchell stopped at the piano and addressed the crowd.

“You know, maybe I’m kinda weird, but when I’m sitting up here playing, and I hear all those people growling out there and people saying, ‘Joni, smile for Amsterdam,’ and stuff, it really puts me up tight. I forget the words, and then I get nervous, and it’s really a drag,” Mitchell said with a stiff smile. “So, uh, you know, I don’t know what to say. Just give me a little help, will you?”

The Folk Singer’s Approach to On- and Off-Stage Life

The broken promise of another Woodstock-esque gathering on the picturesque English Channel island must have been especially disappointing for Joni Mitchell, who wanted to be at Woodstock but had to stay behind on the advice of her manager, David Geffen. Add a rowdy, unforgiving crowd to the mix, and it’s unsurprising that Mitchell would have reacted the way she did.

But in a way, Mitchell’s response to fans telling her to smile was an interesting snapshot of the dissonance between her reputation and who she really was. “I do have this reputation for being a serious person,” Mitchell said in a 1976 Rolling Stone interview. “I’m a very analytical person, a somewhat introspective person. That’s the nature of the work I do. But this is only one side of the coin, you know. I love to dance. I’m a rowdy. I’m a good-timer.”

Mitchell likely would have enjoyed participating in a massive, music-filled festival on a beautiful weekend in August 1970. She likely would have danced, sang, and done so with a smile on her face. But disaffect her music, her band, and her art, and she suddenly has no reason to reveal her “good-timer” side. She eventually finished her set that fateful afternoon, shifting her banter with the crowd from her awkwardly polite pleas to a far more curt, “Give us some respect.”

Photo by Daily Mail/Shutterstock