2020 headliners

[incident]

1 minute ago, dentalplan said:

The bored and chatty fans wouldn't be there if they had no interest in Nick Cave though, cos nobody would be on after him. Doesn't really seem much different to The Cure doing it to me. I am guessing the crowd wasn't heaving for them either, but all people care about is that The Cure crushed it and everyone who didn't see them enjoyed themselves elsewhere.

One of the main considerations has to be given to how many people the act is likely to draw to the stage - in the case of The Cure it wasn't packed out but it was still a respectable number and enough that you probably couldn't have safely put them elsewhere. They do have enough name value, and enough well known songs, that they can (and did) still attract a few floating voters.

Can you honestly say you think the same is true of Nick Cave? Especially considering most of the Glastonbury audience were at Kylie this year, and as has been covered already seemingly a large chunk, probably a majority of those either didn't know who he is or just didn't care.

[Matt42]

Size of Lewis capaldi’s crowd at trnsmt

 

[Muppetmark]

2 hours ago, FuzzyDunlop said:

Maybe its just me, but I think Kasabian were quite a bit bigger than Foals are. West Ryder was a pretty big album.

They were filling out Arenas when West Ryder Came out. I don't think Foals are (I could well be wrong on that, I have not got into them enough to be certain).

Up til Velociraptor, I was pretty big on Kasabian & they lost me - so maybe its a bit of bias? I dont know.

Kasabian were definitely filling arenas at West Ryder cos I saw them at Manchester Arena on that tour.

Foals were filling up arenas on the what went down tour and are almost certainly doing arenas this winter after part 2 of their album. 

 

[FloorFiller]

6 hours ago, FuzzyDunlop said:

Maybe its just me, but I think Kasabian were quite a bit bigger than Foals are. West Ryder was a pretty big album.

They were filling out Arenas when West Ryder Came out. I don't think Foals are (I could well be wrong on that, I have not got into them enough to be certain).

Up til Velociraptor, I was pretty big on Kasabian & they lost me - so maybe its a bit of bias? I dont know.

Kasabian were definitely filling arenas at West Ryder cos I saw them at Manchester Arena on that tour.

Up until and including West Ryder Kasabian had a bunch of charting singles, Fire being the obvious big one, so were more of a household name, and bringing back the age old ‘does my mum know them?’ question I’m sure my mum knows who Kasabian are and would recognise a few of their songs whereas I doubt she’d know any Foals songs and possibly wouldn’t even know who they are.

But then she also didn’t have a clue who Arcade Fire were, and Foals are surely on a level with them, plus being a homegrown act who has risen up the ranks of the Glastonbury lineup and last subbed the Pyramid... I think they deserve a shot at the top spot. Big festival favourites who now have enough big festival anthems to fill an hour and a half (especially with 2019 album #2 due soon). I really think they’re gonna be the Friday headliner. 

[Rose-Colored Boy]

6 hours ago, Matt42 said:

Size of Lewis capaldi’s crowd at trnsmt

 

Yes. Obviously that’s a Scottish act at a Scottish festival but still, he’s clearly well on the way to being the next Sheeran/Ezra. Especially if boring old gammon rockers keep slagging him off.

[thewayiam]

33 minutes ago, FloorFiller said:

Up until and including West Ryder Kasabian had a bunch of charting singles, Fire being the obvious big one, so were more of a household name, and bringing back the age old ‘does my mum know them?’ question I’m sure my mum knows who Kasabian are and would recognise a few of their songs whereas I doubt she’d know any Foals songs and possibly wouldn’t even know who they are.

But then she also didn’t have a clue who Arcade Fire were, and Foals are surely on a level with them, plus being a homegrown act who has risen up the ranks of the Glastonbury lineup and last subbed the Pyramid... I think they deserve a shot at the top spot. Big festival favourites who now have enough big festival anthems to fill an hour and a half (especially with 2019 album #2 due soon). I really think they’re gonna be the Friday headliner. 

Arcade Fire did Hyde Park twice, are people bloody mad?!, we care talking about the staple London gig....not go between of Brixton and The 02!

[sadimmock]

On the Nick Cave front I would point out that he is the only one of the APE headliners to date to really sell his night out. 

[mcshed]

7 minutes ago, thewayiam said:

we care talking about the staple London gig....not go between of Brixton and The 02!

What on earth does this mean? You get a hard time on here sometimes but too often your posts are completely unintelligible. Do you re-read your posts before you publish them?

[Zoo Music Girl]

I'm one of those banging the Nick Cave headliner drum and I partly do it because it's funny and annoys people, but also I'd love to see the festival make that bold move. I see him in the same bracket as The Cure and Metallica - both are somewhat niche artists who had pretty small crowds but they did it in recent years. Do you honestly think the average Glastonbury goer has much interest in Metallica? How would they have reacted to Hetfield getting on stage with Hozier or something? Same blank reaction but they headlined.

Nick has subbed three times and is definitely more mainstream now. They sell out arenas and festivals semi regularly. Emily is a fan. Just bloody do it.

I'd take Other but it would be nowhere near as good.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Zoo Music Girl

[Hugh Jass]

Cave will be a decent option for 2021 when they need to start pairing back expectations after the 50th anniversary extravaganza.

[FuzzyDunlop]

8 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

I'm one of those banging the Nick Cave headliner drum and I partly do it because it's funny and annoys people, but also I'd love to see the festival make that bold move. I see him in the same bracket as The Cure and Metallica - both are somewhat niche artists who had pretty small crowds but they did it in recent years. Do you honestly think the average Glastonbury goer has much interest in Metallica? How would they have reacted to Hetfield getting on stage with Hozier or something? Same blank reaction but they headlined.

Nick has subbed three times and is definitely more mainstream now. They sell out arenas and festivals semi regularly. Emily is a fan. Just bloody do it.

I'd take Other but it would be nowhere near as good.

Metallica don't just sell out arenas - they sell out Stadiums. They are one of the biggest bands ever.

The Metallica booking was similar to the Jay Z booking in my opinion. The biggest name in an untapped genre. 

I like both Metallica & Nick Cave, but they aren't comparible in terms of size really. 

[FloorFiller]

3 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

I'm one of those banging the Nick Cave headliner drum and I partly do it because it's funny and annoys people, but also I'd love to see the festival make that bold move. I see him in the same bracket as The Cure and Metallica - both are somewhat niche artists who had pretty small crowds but they did it in recent years. Do you honestly think the average Glastonbury goer has much interest in Metallica? How would they have reacted to Hetfield getting on stage with Hozier or something? Same blank reaction but they headlined.

Nick has subbed three times and is definitely more mainstream now. They sell out arenas and festivals semi regularly. Emily is a fan. Just bloody do it.

I'd take Other but it would be nowhere near as good.

I’d be over the moon with Cave getting a shot at headlining although I personally don’t ever see it happening, but you really can’t compare him in any way to Metallica. Metallica headline festivals worldwide, playing stadiums and pretty much the biggest venues available/they desire wherever they play and are the single biggest band in the metal genre by a long shot and have a bunch of recognisable songs to anybody who’s ever bothered to delve in to heavy music at all.They may have been an unusual Glastonbury headliner and it was probably the first gig in a long time where they’ve actually had to work to win over the crowd in front of them, but they’re on a different planet than Cave who pretty much has one widely recognised song because of it being the theme tune for a recent TV show. It would be incredible for us fans but that would be a very small crowd. Just get him back subbing and freaking out the normies who’re there for Taylor Swift on afterwards. 

[Rose-Colored Boy]

Comparing Nick Cave with The Cure and Metallica is pretty wild. The latter two may be niche in terms of Glastonbury headliners but they’ve still sold 150 million records worldwide between them, Mr Cave’s never even had an album go platinum.

Arcade Fire is definitely a more accurate comparison, but even they were a modern act who had slowly but surely worked their way up lineups over the previous ten years.

EDIT: what those two said ^

Edited July 16, 2019 by Rose-Colored Boy

[Zoo Music Girl]

Both had paltry crowds though. My point wasn't about relative size (I know both are bigger) but interest from the average Glastonbury goer.

Just my view though. I know it's more likely to be 1975, Foals and Coldplay.

 

[Zoo Music Girl]

And I still don't think I could name a Foals song. Happy for them to headline because there is always one I barely know that does these days but do they appeal to the Radio One masses? 

[Rose-Colored Boy]

1 minute ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

And I still don't think I could name a Foals song. Happy for them to headline because there is always one I barely know that does these days but do they appeal to the Radio One masses? 

Yeah, Radio 1 love them, they’re Big Weekend regulars.

[Zoo Music Girl]

1 minute ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

Yeah, Radio 1 love them, they’re Big Weekend regulars.

Fair enough. What's people's beef then?

[djdavejohnson]

I didn't think the crowd was too bad for The Cure, certainly felt quite busy to me, and the crowd seemed to stretch to the back of the field. I was one of those floaters on the night. Fairly vocal in the lead up about it not being a great booking, happy to give them a shot and so glad I did, loved it. 

Doesn't add much to the current discussion except to say that would I have done the same on that Sunday if Nick Cave was on the pyramid? Very unlikely, but what do I know! 

[Zoo Music Girl]

2 minutes ago, djdavejohnson said:

I didn't think the crowd was too bad for The Cure, certainly felt quite busy to me, and the crowd seemed to stretch to the back of the field. I was one of those floaters on the night. Fairly vocal in the lead up about it not being a great booking, happy to give them a shot and so glad I did, loved it. 

Doesn't add much to the current discussion except to say that would I have done the same on that Sunday if Nick Cave was on the pyramid? Very unlikely, but what do I know! 

We were behind the sound stage and had metres of empty space on all sides. Don't get me wrong though, it was bloody lovely to have so much space to enjoy it and not have to be too close to anyone that might be chatting. Awesome gig too.

My point really is that it doesn't really matter if it's not packed out if there are big options on the other stages. I don't think the audience, the artist or the festival would really mind.

[HotChipWillBreakYourLegs]

1 hour ago, sadimmock said:

On the Nick Cave front I would point out that he is the only one of the APE headliners to date to really sell his night out. 

The Strokes also. 

[djdavejohnson]

14 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

We were behind the sound stage and had metres of empty space on all sides. Don't get me wrong though, it was bloody lovely to have so much space to enjoy it and not have to be too close to anyone that might be chatting. Awesome gig too.

My point really is that it doesn't really matter if it's not packed out if there are big options on the other stages. I don't think the audience, the artist or the festival would really mind.

Yeah admittedly there was plenty of space around and the space made it that bit more enjoyable after being packed in at other performances. 

I agree with your point to an extent, except that I don't think that should be an active consideration for a Pyramid headliner. If the bookers feel that the audience would be minimal, why waste a Pyramid slot of said act when there's hundreds of other slots available? There's three Pyramid headline slots, I think we all accept that those slots aren't going to be filled by those huge acts we all crave, but giving a newcomer / rising acts their chance over acts most haven't really heard of seems a good balance to me.

Edited July 16, 2019 by djdavejohnson
Spelling

[FuzzyDunlop]

It's weird cos my group obviously don't make up the average glastonbury demographic.

My view is often skewed.

I say that because we constantly see very little of the popular stuff. We seem to have an interest in the least popular headliners. 

2014 is the only time I saw all 3 Pyramid headliners... and the last time I saw one.

Of our group of 8. (Only 7 went this year though)

2 saw Adele, 0 Kanye, 1 Saw Coldplay, 2 Foo Fighters, 0 Ed Sheeran, 0 saw any headliner this year.

All of us saw Metallica & 6/8 Arcade Fire... all saw the Chemical Brothers this year.

3 of us would be at Nick Cave if he headlined, none of us at Taylor Swift (who'd obviously get a much bigger crowd).

 

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by FuzzyDunlop

[Rose-Colored Boy]

12 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

Fair enough. What's people's beef then?

Just feels a bit past their bedtime innit. There was a glaring opportunity for them to headline in 2016, if they didn’t do it then why would they do it now? 

Dental is right they’d be a far more interesting booking than bloody Kings of Leon, and the backlash would be minimal compared to some of the names floating around, but those two facts are about the only things they’ve got going for them at this stage.

[pryce]

i would say we need to be careful comparing arena tours from 10 years ago to now

 

10 years ago it cost between 30 and 40 quid for an arena ticket , these days its costs 50-70

I wouldn't pay that for any band now, back 10 years ago it wasn't even a factor I thought of.

 

Gig prices have increased massively and I think people are a lot more careful with what they spend money on.

probably spouting rubbish... early in the morning

 

[Zoo Music Girl]

I don't think I do crave any huge acts to be honest. It would be fun to see Lady Gaga or Elton, but I'm ambivalent about Fleetwood Mac. Who else is there that haven't done it and are mega artists?

I think expectations need to be scaled down a bit. And I also am very pro giving new artists a leg up.