2019 Headliners

[priest17]

14 minutes ago, giantkatestacks said:

I would see Stormzy over AM any day of the week. 

Any day? You couldn't have done that on a Sunday.

[giantkatestacks]

3 minutes ago, priest17 said:

Any day? You couldn't have done that on a Sunday.

Or in a more likely scenario, I would be at Chic. Again. (thanks to @Zoo Music Girl for reminding me where I was last time)

[fatyeti24]

2 hours ago, StupidDream said:

Guess Glasto has to abandon to whole white-men-with-guitars-thing in the coming years? Or will the next ten-twenty years of headliners consist of recurring acts and 50+-years musicians. (Sadly, guitar music seems to be dying and not many seem to be growing towards absolute headline status?) Not exactly the kind that will rejuvinate your ageing audience? Or does the entirety of the festival appeal enough and should we all ignore the headliners? If that would be the case, you could save some money and/or put down a different set of headliners. So I guess we indeed will gradually see some Stormzy et al. the coming years. 

I don't think the headliners can ever be totally ignored - it's kinda the point for many people, people who buy tickets that subsidise the other elements of the festival.  But at the same time, there's no real reason why the dominant pop music of the 20th century - guitar bands - should maintain that position this century. 

It looks like the era of mega bands is coming to a close.  There's just so much more choice now and thus probably much harder acts to scale up to say, Rolling Stones or Springsteen size.  Glastonbury more than just about any other festival given its size and amount of stages is well placed to exploit that.  Maybe we just need to get over the mentality that a headliner means 100,000 people standing in front of a massive Pyramid.  But then if that Pyramid didn't bring in 100,000 ticket buyers, would the festival be able to provide the variety it does?

Glasto catch 22.

FWIW the last headliner I saw was Kanye.  I've seen about 8 or 9 in 13 festivals and struggle to think of an act I'd be into who could command that slot, and I'll be here on T-Day yet again.

[Yokel Again]

 

My preference would be to bump up rather than same acts every couple of years...

I can remember Coldplay headlining after 1 record, Travis after 2? 

Bump Wolf Alice up!

[CaledonianGonzo]

This isn't the "What could Glastonbury do that would stop you going?" thread.

[MEGABOWL]

As other have said, Glastonbury isn't really in a position to pick and choose. If you're the Eavii and The Cure, Arctic Monkeys and Macca are willing to do it for a standard Glastonbury fee you book them. Maybe some years they're lucky enough to have more than 3 and can pick and choose but three headliners of that size without eating into the budget for elsewhere is an easy decision.

Plus, they must always be keen to avoid another 2015 where one headliner leads to Emily getting death threats and they only get a third headliner booked late on when they reluctantly cancel their own existing gig. Sleep's important, you know?

[mufcok]

5 minutes ago, MEGABOWL said:

As other have said, Glastonbury isn't really in a position to pick and choose. If you're the Eavii and The Cure, Arctic Monkeys and Macca are willing to do it for a standard Glastonbury fee you book them. Maybe some years they're lucky enough to have more than 3 and can pick and choose but three headliners of that size without eating into the budget for elsewhere is an easy decision.

Plus, they must always be keen to avoid another 2015 where one headliner leads to Emily getting death threats and they only get a third headliner booked late on when they reluctantly cancel their own existing gig. Sleep's important, you know?

Exactly. It's three very strong headliners, whatever way you look at it. Any British festival that books those next year, in particular Macca and AM, is laughing. I still wouldn't be surprised for 1 of those to be wrong but time will tell.

They're not gonna say no to acts of that calibre just to bump someone up for the sake of it. If someone 'smaller' is seriously knocking at the door then yes, but there isn't someone who fits that bill at the moment for me

Edited September 24, 2018 by mufcok

[Matt42]

4 minutes ago, MEGABOWL said:

As other have said, Glastonbury isn't really in a position to pick and choose. If you're the Eavii and The Cure, Arctic Monkeys and Macca are willing to do it for a standard Glastonbury fee you book them. 

*claps*

the Gp piss me off when it comes to glastonbury discussions because they just don’t get it. The focus of the festival is THE FESTIVAL, Glastonbury isn’t going to structure itself around securing a headliner. They might want someone but they make their terms clear.

I think those three headliners are great, and if it means that they can secure their headliners early and move onto sorting out the rest of the festival I find that more exciting. 

Also we’ve been very lucky getting Adele, The Rolling Stones, Beyonce, Ed Sheehan (for some), Kanye West in the past but I worry that a lot of inexperienced punters now expect that this is standard.

if Madge and Kendrick don’t want to do it then so be it - it’s not worth Glasto breaking their back to get them. As much as I love Kendrick and I’ve championed him to headline 2019 for a long time - after hearing about his R&L set I wonder if it would be a big disappointment if he did headline. I don’t think he would be able to meet expectations.

[DownboundTrain52]

31 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

*claps*

the Gp piss me off when it comes to glastonbury discussions because they just don’t get it. The focus of the festival is THE FESTIVAL, Glastonbury isn’t going to structure itself around securing a headliner. They might want someone but they make their terms clear.

I think those three headliners are great, and if it means that they can secure their headliners early and move onto sorting out the rest of the festival I find that more exciting. 

Also we’ve been very lucky getting Adele, The Rolling Stones, Beyonce, Ed Sheehan (for some), Kanye West in the past but I worry that a lot of inexperienced punters now expect that this is standard.

if Madge and Kendrick don’t want to do it then so be it - it’s not worth Glasto breaking their back to get them. As much as I love Kendrick and I’ve championed him to headline 2019 for a long time - after hearing about his R&L set I wonder if it would be a big disappointment if he did headline. I don’t think he would be able to meet expectations.

Just about everyone I spoke to seemed to agree that Panic! upstaged Kendrick and, honestly, that didn't surprise me as much as I expected such a statement might.

[thewayiam]

1 hour ago, nikkic said:

We'd all love Madge and Kendrick to headline, it would be exciting and tick the diversity boxes, but there's not a lot the festival can do if they are asking for millions. 

You're then left with your Monkey Men who'd do it for relative peanuts. 

Sometimes the hands of the festival are a little tied. 

They tend to get it right most of the time. 



 

Kendrick won't be around to even do it though. I'm good with the 3 likely as I'm only arsed about seeing one. The other two I can be swayed away from easy.

[Alex DeLarge]

2 hours ago, Mash011 said:

They completely misjudged the concept of music when they wrote The Globalist.

[incident]

1 hour ago, MEGABOWL said:

Maybe some years they're lucky enough to have more than 3 and can pick and choose but three headliners of that size without eating into the budget for elsewhere is an easy decision.

Yep. Although there seems to be a few people on here who seem to think it matters how much acts cost in terms of whether there can be 2 or 3 "expensive" acts in the same year - I really don't think that they're in the habit of going above the standard headliner fee, except for the Stones. And the festival would dispute even that one.

Thing is, if they've got a standard fee of (reportedly) 250k that's known and generally accepted throughout the industry, it'll also get known pretty quickly if they start offering more to certain acts - and then suddenly acts that would have played for the 250k will be demanding more. The Stones can be an exception because they're the Stones, but aside from that the acts that play are going to be the ones that agree the fee which massively reduces the potential pool.

[nikkic]

Slightly off topic but apparently The Stones had a fairly unprecedented guest list of 2500. 

[Hugh Jass]

11 minutes ago, nikkic said:

Slightly off topic but apparently The Stones had a fairly unprecedented guest list of 2500. 

Keith’s dealers.

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

1 hour ago, Matt42 said:

I worry that a lot of inexperienced punters now expect that this is standard.

This is a greater cultural issue. We live in an increasingly over-privileged society driven by those with an obscene sense of entitlement. Unfortunately Glastonbury suffers from the same disease if many social media posts are to be believed post-announcement and often from those who should really know what the festival is really all about. I've been guilty of it in the past myself but as you get older you come to realise that the only thing that matters is getting through those gates 

[StupidDream]

Obviously it seems weird to go back to Glastonbury not being sold out instantly, but could be happening if they won't book those immense headliners in coming years? Indeed recent years has seen some special names, plus people suffer from tremendous FOMO. Might be nice to return to a less heated Ticket Day.

[FuzzyDunlop]

Having just watched a video of McCartney in NYE... it was sad. I had to turn it off.

 

I won't be watching him on the farm - if he plays and I am there.

[Hugh Jass]

1 minute ago, FuzzyDunlop said:

Having just watched a video of McCartney in NYE... it was sad. I had to turn it off.

 

I won't be watching him on the farm - if he plays and I am there.

Ah come on, no one sounds great croaking our Auld Lang’s Aye at midnight after a few beers...

[Mash011]

1 hour ago, Alex DeLarge said:

Tbh Bellamy's always been about 2 steps away from appearing on Infowars. Loves a conspiracy he does, voted for brexit and all.

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

3 minutes ago, FuzzyDunlop said:

Having just watched a video of McCartney in NYE... it was sad. I had to turn it off.

 

I won't be watching him on the farm - if he plays and I am there.

I know what you mean. I felt similar before The Who in 2015. I knew Daltrey's voice was shot but it was The fucking Who. I decided that the best course of action was to get myself to a certain medicated state and enjoy it for what it was in the moment. Mind you, when I watched the footage later on that week it was teeth-gnashingly bad. I'm sure McCartney will be the same but it's Paul fucking McCartney. Although I do appreciate that the very same statement is the exact reason that some people will be elsewhere.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Daltrey sounded fine in the field.

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

2 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Daltrey sounded fine in the field.

Yes but he had to fight for his meals

[dentalplan]

Thought he sounded excellent. I even remarked to my friends, also present, that "Roger Daltrey sounds excellent".

[CaledonianGonzo]

Definitely remember waiting to see if he'd manage his scream on Won't Get Fooled Again and it was a passable wallop at it.

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

3 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Daltrey sounded fine in the field.

In fairness, whilst I was in that field he sounded great. I've just watched some footage on YouTube. He's forcing it badly in places, which is understandable.

But my point is it's not about the TV footage.

Glastonbury has and always will be about the moments.