Current mood: SELL SELL SELL!!!! Category: SELL SELL SELL!!!! Music
All good things come to an end and whereas The Glastonbury Festival probably never will, I'm getting the feeling it's been past it's BIG TIME peak and I think the current unsold tickets are proof of that ..
Yes boss, though I've not been along since the year 2000, after the 2007 edition of the festival ended in ANOTHER mudbath, I had the distinct feeling that 2 years of shitty weather, together with all this over ID organisation, the agressive denial of freeloaders (like PG£) and too much listening to the police's advice (since when have the police ever organised a good music festival?!?) was going to damage Glastonbury's alt.appeal...
Of course I'm not the only person to have an opinion as to why Glastonbury is struggling to sell out in a single day....
His idea is that Glastonbury, is a guitar based festival (like Oasis) and Hip Hop isn't guitar based (like Oasis are) so it's therefore all Jay Z's fault (not Oasis's fault), which is a viewpoint with all the sophistication, intelligence and exactness of the music of Oasis..
But, whereas I can accpet that Umbrella might well not be flavour of the average Glasto goer, that ain't even in the top PG£ 3 of reasons as to why the tickets are so far unsold
The below are
1) TOO MUCH SHITTY WEATHER: How many times do the same people want to walk around a mudbath and barely hear bands because the festival is worried about noise pollution??
2) Overkill: Glastonbury is becoming too well known
3) Recession: The Glasto crowd these days is predominantly composed of young. well meaning middle class folk. Alot of these new young professionals have mortgages, and as much as they love a good shindig in the mud and opportunity to buy a new reusable canvas shopping bag - they'd really rather have the mortgage paid any day of the week...
4) Comeptition: Every man and his dog is organising a festival these days.
Shit, when I was a lad, there was The Pheonix, Reading & Glastonbury and that was it - nowadays there are more festivals than there are pubs in London, that between them accomodate for every different angle on the idea of a festival... Yes boss, along with the big festivals there are a host of others like The Big Chill which are begining to do 'Glastonbury' as well - if not better - than Glastonbury currently is.
5) ID SHIT: All this ID shit to buy a ticket is HORSESHIT!!! You shouldn't have to have photo ID to attend a firggin music festival. I don't give a fuck what the police advice is. IT ISN'T HOW IT IS!!
And if it is, the Glasonbury organisers should stop their festival for a few years and see how much the police like the hundreds of small illegal festivals that would crop up in it's place
I'm sure a lot of the white kids that make up the bulk of the Glasto crowd don't much like Jay Z
But I fully respect the organisers decision to challenge the audience and book him
Furthermore, I think Jay Z will do a good show.
I mean give me him over the Arctic Bleeding (bore me to tears) Monkeys ANY DAY OF ANY WEEK!!!!
Seriously. Hip Hop can and does work LIVE
I only went to The Reading Festival once (1994), and I didn't think that much of it, but the best guy on show was Ice Cube. He turned the crowd over like no-one else. At the begining of the set, droves were leaving, but as he got going, droves were going forward to see his action. HE WAS BRILLIANT!!!
Furthermore, the best act at that aberation that was LIVE8 was Snoop Doggy Dog...
So, here we go with The Paul Giovanni solution to ensure that Glastonbury sells out.
1) DITCH THE ID SHIT AND MAKE THAT FENCE JUST A LITTLE BIT POROUS!!!
2) MOVE THE FESTIVAL TO AUGUST TO IMPROVE THE LIKELIHOOD OF GOOD WEATHER!!!
3) STOP ALL THIS PICKING POP STARS FOR HEADLINERS!!!
Have not the best headline sets of recent years been by (then) smaller stand in bands like Pulp?!? Bands who have been there or thereabouts, but are yet to hit their peak?!? Bands who will really grab the opportunity rather than treat it as just another stadium gig...
Jumping the fence even when I could afford the ticket was just great fun, and anyway I always spent my fare share inside!! Too strict criteria is off putting when your thinking of going on 4 day bender of all sorts and they know exactly who you are, it changes the vibe, no more pillow cases of weed etc.... Its not about the line up its about the vibe and that has gone,. Oh and the recession is also a big factor at those prices for a weekend!!
What I want to know is why aren't people working hard and creating wealth instead of sitting around on their asses smoking pot and listening to mostly shit bands (sponsorred by Vodafone)?!?
I think things'll soon change.
Festivals are a product of boomtime and boomtime is well and truly over...
I think you got it nailed I was there for the pulp gig, it was truly awsome But the levellers? As far as I know the levellers where every middle class teenager pretending to rebel against there parents favorite band. and they where just goddamm awful!
Jay-Z will put on a good show. Granted, its not quite what comes to mind when I hear "glastonbury" but it is 2008 and I guess the times are changing...
The Levellers were a perfect Glasto hippie trustamuffin band and were guaranteed to get any festival going on a drunken dance, not the greatest band but a great live band none the less. And nothing tops seeing sonic Youth Following Tony Bennet in the knee deep mud body aching trench foot setting in smoking an 8" long pipe of weed and hash and the sun finally coming out and the magic of the setting becomes apparent that musical transcendance will always happen at Glasto, you go for the unexpected not the expected, and it's always odd things that grab you like the stoned rasta at the roller disco moving around at the slowest pace possible shambling along as our hash truffles kicked into the coffee with a shot of pear brandy kicked the morning into place.
Most of my favourite Glastonbury memories are of acts and bands I knew nothing of or events way beyond the expected. That's the spirit of the event and the thing that made it stand way above everything else that was on offer until these last few years when some of the smaller festivals have caught up a little...
On it's day The Glastonbury Festival is the best city on earth...
You..ve hit the nail on the head! Jay-Z is far from the best hip hop act but he..s famous enough (Or dare I say commercial enough) to pull in a big crowd. Having seen Snoop Dogg cause a moshpit oasis wouldve been proud of i agree hip hop can work. Its a Live event Not a Genre-fest. The unexpected always works better.. What could be more rock n roll than not being rock n roll? Having never been to Glasto but a T in the Park veteran (9 out the last 10) I think success brings it..s own problems. Once it gets too big it loses it..s edge a bit. Thats why last year people were talking more about The Beastie Boys (Sorry Noel) at Connect or Daft Punk @ Rock Ness (Sorry Noel) rather than Snow Patrol closing the main stage at TITP. ID for a festival is WRONG! WRONG! WROOOOOOONG! Bad weather is always a risk in Britain no matter when it is! "David Cameronesque" Lol New adjective :) The Levellers are far from my idea of great music but they really kicked the weekend off at T in the Park a few years ago with Just The One almost causing a stampede of old skool hippies and spoiled rich kids together. The competition was caused by demand because of the big ones selling out in seconds (BLAME THE INTERNET!!!)
The new wave of festivals were certainly caused by the success of Glastonbury and the other bigger festivals.
I also think the old crowd of hippies upon which Glastonbury was built, are (for the most part) far too disorganised and/or unwilling to pre-order and perpare ID so they're increasingly looking at the smaller events as is the overspill crowd unable to get tickets for the bigger dos...
Glastonbury has moved on to become an interntional 'Lonely Planet' event...
Well I've just spent my £35 for tickets to Get Loaded in the Park on clapham common in August, a one day festival that I'd pay that money to see headliners Iggy And The Stooges alone, so everything else is just a bonus!! and I get to go hame and sleep in my own bed!! Bonus!!
Here's a vid about an italian music festival I've never heard of, I don't know if its as funny as claimed as my italian doesn't run to anything much beyond sear words and how to order food!!
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