and the headliners are....

[mrtourette]

The thing is, he just doesnt realise that the festival already sort of reflects what he says it should.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

The festival has always been about reflecting music that is big at its time.

[metallimuse]

I don't think you'd ever see a modern rap artist headline an inherently rock festival.

[onemangang]

quote name='metallimuse' timestamp='1296609383' post='3489520']

Umm...Jay Z at Glastonbury the other year?I mean,I know Glastonbury is a very mixed bag but surely you would still class it as a "inheritantly rock festival"?

The way that Dizzee keeps moving up the bills around Britain I can see him headlining one day soon.

Edited February 2, 2011 by onemangang

[Dave The Hedgehog]

Umm...Jay Z at Glastonbury the other year?I mean,I know Glastonbury is a very mixed bag but surely you would still class it as a "inheritantly rock festival"?

The way that Dizzee keeps moving up the bills around Britain I can see him headlining one day soon.

[kev1664]

I'm of the opinion that Dizzee will be the next rap/hip hop act to headline the festival. He was 3rd from top last year and he is only going to move up the bill. I thought between him and Biffy they were the next two acts that I could see stepping up to headline status at R&L.

Biffy have already managed to pul a headlining slot at Sonisphere and thats gonna propell them quicker. With Biffy being popular in the main stream now they have more major festivals that they have a chance of headlining, with sonisphere, download, R@L, IOW, Glastonbury(Won't happen for a while), V festival, T in the park, Oxegen & Rock Ness

Dizzee's problem is that he has two less festivals than Biffy but I can still easily see him stepping up in the next year or two.

[mrtourette]

Yeah I'm with Dave, Glastonbury is more of a pop festival than a rock festival. Look at some the acts they've had (The Coors, Robbie Williams, Kylie) and look at some of the acts that R&L have had the Glastonbury never would (Iron Maiden, Metallica). Glastonbury is more middle ground and therefore more likely to swing to rap and rnb acts. It would take something very special (in terms of situation not talent) to happen at R&L, you can't just throw anyone up with the attitude that "it was OK at Glastonbury and R&L needs to open it's mind".

I'm sure it will happen, in my opinion mainly brought on by Download and Sonisphere cornering the hard rock acts and forcing R&L to look elsewhere and maybe re-brand slightly, but thinking that it can be forced by the organisers and that the paying customers will just accept it without some kind of backlash (possibly setting the whole movement back a few years) is a bit naive.

[jump]

Umm...Jay Z at Glastonbury the other year?I mean,I know Glastonbury is a very mixed bag but surely you would still class it as a "inheritantly rock festival"?

The way that Dizzee keeps moving up the bills around Britain I can see him headlining one day soon.

[sifi]

Yeah I'm with Dave, Glastonbury is more of a pop festival than a rock festival. Look at some the acts they've had (The Coors, Robbie Williams, Kylie) and look at some of the acts that R&L have had the Glastonbury never would (Iron Maiden, Metallica). Glastonbury is more middle ground and therefore more likely to swing to rap and rnb acts. It would take something very special (in terms of situation not talent) to happen at R&L, you can't just throw anyone up with the attitude that "it was OK at Glastonbury and R&L needs to open it's mind".

Edited February 2, 2011 by sifi

[sifi]

Dave - I'd imagine that if Dre tours an up in smoke type thing that he's rumoured to be doing for his new album, R&L would bite his arm off for a headlining slot.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

I'm sure it will happen

[sifi]

I thhink that Dave is a very two dimensional analysis of the music scene ; as if it's a sliding scale of pop - indie - rock - metal. There are a huge amount of brilliant music that you can't put into those simplistic groups.

[jump]

Reading and Leeds is the middle ground between Glastonbury and Download, and because of that strange place between the two, it can afford the opportunity to add more variety than your average 'distinctly Rock' festival. You'd never get somebody like Dizzie Rascal at a place like Download just as you wouldn't get Slayer at a place like Glastonbury, so in between the two sits Reading & Leeds - which is great in a way from a business perspective as it offers something for two completely different kinds of people. When it stops doing that, then it'll become shit and people will stop going, or more people of a certain crowd will start going... or will they?

For instance - if you have music geared more towards the Radio 1 crowd, you'll already have T in the Park and V Festival to compete against, and if festivals become increasingly more dependent on the exclusivity of their headliners to reel in the punters, you'll only be able to see X band at one of the festivals - which then prompts the punter to make a decision as to which festival he should go to to see that band. Festivals appeal to people with a disposable income but even they have limits on the amount of festivals they can attend in a year so if V Festival gets more Radio 1 bands than Reading and Leeds, the Radio 1 crowd will feel more inclined to go to V festival. So what happens? Reading and Leeds get shit Radio 1 bands.

Vice versa - if you have music geared towards the Kerrang and Terrorizer crowd, you'll be competing against Hard Rock Calling, Bloodstock, Download and Sonisphere - so you'll lose all of the Radio 1 crowd, but if those other festivals have exclusive headliners or go even further and make sure their bands appear at no other festivals, Reading and Leeds won't get any decent Metal or Punk bands either.

Basically, the fact you have so many festivals to choose from and the fact most festivals seem to pride themselves on the exclusivity of the bands they book is what'll eventually kill festivals - or make it so that eventually all of the best bands only go to one festival and all of the other festivals become irrelevant through playing bands that are essentially third rate or 'the best we could find - and we'll still charge you £200'

[Dave The Hedgehog]

I thhink that Dave is a very two dimensional analysis of the music scene ; as if it's a sliding scale of pop - indie - rock - metal. There are a huge amount of brilliant music that you can't put into those simplistic groups.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

They did have Lethal Bizzle at Download and he went down well, and Prodigy & Pendulum both play semi-regularly and not fit in with the typical Download band.

[sifi]

How - from what I've said - have you managed to figure that one out?

[Dave The Hedgehog]

Probably from "Reading and Leeds is the middle ground between Glastonbury and Download" or "so in between the two sits Reading & Leeds".

[mrtourette]

What a load of bollocks. There is more variety than just indie, pop and metal at Glasto. You've got all sorts of jazz, world music, ska, reggae, rock, rockabily, pure blues, soul, all sorts of dance music. Sure on the main stage there might be a fair few pop acts (and for the record, Kylie has never played a set at Glasto, only one song as a guest of another band) but that's like judging The Beatles back catalogue by just listening to Yellow Submarine.

[metallimuse]

im not so sure about dizzy. at the end of the day he's a pop act plane an simple. like any other pop act they all have a shelf life, i dont think he will get any highter, everyone no's who he is now, so he's nothing new. theres only soo many songs he can sing about drinking and girls. with such an array of these squeaky cleen, r.n.b, rap, pop stars, comming out of london at the moment. i would put good money on there being someone else to take dizzy over this year or next.

[sifi]

Are you retarded? I didn't say it was just indie, pop and metal at Glasto (in fact I said there was no metal at Glasto), I said it was more a pop festival than a rock festival. The fact that there is a wider range or blues, jazz, dance, etc. just proves my original point that Glasto is more likely to have rap and rnb acts than R&L. Read posts before you call them bollocks.

[sifi]

How is that an unfair observation? It's not quite an indie festival and it's not quite a metal festival, and at the same time it offers a lot of different forms on music in between on the smaller stages and allows reasonable space for dance music, hip hop and a whole other load of assorted forms of music from Noise to Grime, but is essentially focused on offering something a bit edgier to what you find at Glastonbury but not as pre-dominately as it does at Download.

If you add multi-faceted dimensions to something that is really quite obvious, you complicate it.

[mrtourette]

I think that depends entirely on what your definition of pop is, and I'd suggest if you look at all the acts that play at Glasto, and count the number of them that are "pop", and do the same for R&L, you'd have a very similar ratio.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

I guess it depends what you define as edgier. Personally, I don't think it gets much edgier than A Hard Rain is gonna fall by Bob Dylan.

[rockinthecasbah]

So just because they are in the charts they are good? Perfect example Will smiths daughter so they will have to play

[swede]

I will not hear a bad word said about Willow Smith.