Friday, June 24, 2011

Glastonbury 2011: For Prince, it's 150,000 people bitterly disappointed in a field

It's not really a surprise that Prince has an inflated sense of his own importance. But his anti-Glastonbury snark in the Guardian is still amusing:

Next weekend, Prince is back in Europe – this interview is to promote his headlining appearance at the Heinken Open'er festival in Poland – but he bats away an inquiry about the annual Glastonbury rumours. "They use my name to sell the festival," he glowers. "It's illegal. I've never spoken to anyone about doing that concert, ever."
Yes, every year. They open the booking website, the counter barely clicks over, and so Emily Eavis whispers to a journalist that Prince is headlining and - bingo - the ticket page goes down.

If Glastonbury were somehow using Prince's name to sell tickets, yes, it would be illegal. But they don't. I love the idea of Prince sitting at home on the last Monday in June convinced that thousands of people had been tricked into tramping over to Somerset on the off-chance of seeing a live version of When Doves Cry ruined by some over-active noodling.

[Part of Glastonbury 2011 full coverage]


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

if prince isn't an artist who has the potential to increase glastonbury ticket sales, no artists have the potential to increase glastonbury ticket sales. i think your suggestion that few people are interested in seeing prince live is a great deal more quaint than his suggestion that people are (which is fairly self-evident)

and criticizing a prince show for featuring over-active noodling is like criticizing a wu-tang clan show for featuring over-active machismo

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

I think you've completely misunderstood, anonymous - the point is nobody who buys Glastonbury tickets does so because of some vague rumour that Prince might be playing. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone tweet, for example, when the Glastonbury ticket server falls over "damn, I can't get tickets to see Prince and some other acts".

He has an audience who are interested in seeing him; but he's not the reason people are buying Glastonbury tickets.

On your other point: exactly, I'm glad we agree.

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