Glastonbury, Music Festivals & Live Gigs

I'm looking at TV lists now.
Adele, Beyonce, Coldplay, Chemical Brothers. Mumford and Sons, Nile Rogers, Amy Winehouse, Ed Sheeran, David Bowie.....Yawn.

Don't start me on the awful fawning over Amy Winehouse

I'm not mad on Arthur Lee, but you've got to think "well at least THIS hasn't been repeated to bloody death!"

Took me a bit of watching it to remember they showed the Bowie headline spot the year before last, when it was also released on CD. But this was a "complete" version, with added never-before-seen bits, apparently.

They did this a few times in their highlights shows "here's 4 songs from the Rolling Stones, 3 of which were never shown before" and you think "well why the hell not?" Not only are they sitting on an archive of decades of shows, but they're sitting on stuff they didn't even show the first time.

Also a singular lack of St John of Peel too. He was a regular presenter, but you'd never have known it.

Glastonbury 2021 cancelled

Well, that gives the BBC 5 months to work out how to do better than last bloody year.

A lot depends on which festivals might still be available when we hit May

No loss.
Septuagenarians, Taylor Swift, dance troupes, Fearn Cotton, rappers with backwards caps

Readers will no doubt have heard that as a result of Brexit, artists will need to complete extensive paperwork if they wish to tour in Europe.
Criticism of Brexit negotiators is being made and a session of a parliamentary committee is being broadcast on BBC Parliament today.

Although Government and the music business isn't going to do things differently just because Chris says, I've a few opinions I'd like to share.

1. The nation voted to leave the European Union because people saw too many foreigners in the country. Any agreement struck to facilitate UK artists may be reciprical contrary to the democratic wish.

2. Some Britons might envisage a foreign poet, roadie, punk, hippy or rapper as the type of foreigner more likely to enter the country and then stay illegally.

3.Officials have to try to act in accordance with residents wishes so were right to not prioritise the easy passage of artists especially if in the process they were able to secure a better deal on something like trade or jobs or human rights..

4. Artists have always had to fill in forms when they tour outside of Europe

5. Big artists will have people to fill in forms, smallers artists will have to do it themselves.

6. I've noticed artists doing just a handful of gigs when touring the UK. I recall the Arctic Monkeys: Glasgow, Birmingham, Plymouth, Manchester, Londion, Sheffield. That's it, 6 gigs. At a hundred quid a pop plus travel, accommodation that's five hundred or so for two.

7. Someone will say there's no where to play. True, flats have been built next to venues, residents have complained about the noise and the venue's had to close but when Ash played a few years ago they did 26 dates, one in every town in the alphabet. Cliff Richard: I remember he had a 40 date tour in the UK. Status Quo: I think there's was 89 dates or something.

8. My county is the one that gave the nation The Rolling Stones, Billy Childish, The Pretty Things. You'd never think so if you sought an evening's entertainment; in a normal year an on line events guide might have three or four events: Typically a 'Festival' one weekend in May, a date at Pizza Express in the autumn and Dancing On Ice before Christmas.

9. There's s great interest in music. Sales of guitars etc are always on the up, the net is awash with tutorials and tab sites. every time you see someone interviewed on line they've got a guitar hanging on their wall.

10. My point is that if it's so hard for British artists to tour abroad then why can't they tour at home?

You are coming over as very anti Europe bordering on a racist in that post I don't like it at all,
A am sure that the British public didn't vote to stop bands touring
If what you put in your 2nd point is what you think them you have got problems

I remain of the view that artists don't perform here enough.