Neil Young

[Colorblindjames]

2 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

Not sure why you made this response to my post, but no problem 

 

Anyway re televising, my opinion is that none of it should be televised.

Yea sorry should have been to someone else. I’m ok with the TV coverage but not if it dictates what’s in the performance or who is going to perform. 

[Pinhead]

34 minutes ago, Johnnyseven said:

 

98, can't remember if they even had big screens back then.

 

They had one on the left only.

[ghostdancer1]

1 hour ago, Keithy said:

I can see why that final bullet point might be problematic for some artists, particularly in an era where touring is the only way to make money. You're effectively been asked to give away your live show for a small performance fee and the Beeb get the rights to broadcast your live show for free whenever they like. 

 

Fwiw, I've increasingly had the feeling over the last 5 years or so that we're becoming props for the TV broadcast, certainly on the main stages. The secret sets should (IMHO) be for the people there, not the millions on tv. Killers in JP was a right treat and felt special.... Until you got home and found it was all on TV and all a bit staged as a 'surprise'... It was no longer a little story to tell on your return about the killers doing a set etc but rather people saying to you "oh the killers looked good on TV, etc" 

While I don't disagree, I'd imagine that negotiation on that specific point could have been done with GFL/BBC giving up rights to use the footage in perpetuity.

[Jamm]

9 minutes ago, ghostdancer1 said:

While I don't disagree, I'd imagine that negotiation on that specific point could have been done with GFL/BBC giving up rights to use the footage in perpetuity.

To me that’s what has happened, GFL to Young’s team booked him on the pretence they would remove that (or other specific factors), thinking they could negotiate with the BBC an exception. 

 

But then down the road GFL tried and couldn’t negotiate that exception with the BBC.

 

GFL had to go back to Neil and advise they can’t proceed on the agreed terms, giving him a get out. He then feels annoyed because they agreed something in good faith, that the third party then enforced.

 

It’s the only thing that makes sense regarding the timing of everything, and Neil’s comments making him seem slighted. 
 

If at that point you blame the BBC for not agreeing to the exception, or Glastonbury for perhaps overstating their hand when booking Neil, well that’s up for discussion.

[Avalon_Fields]

The way I was told last year (by the professional photographers working the festival) is the headliners now have the power to fully control the images produced, so much so that increasingly the acts stipulate who has access to the pit and exclusively okay only their own approved photographers, whereas in previous times the festival held the upper hand, so it seems the festival has lost control of both image rights to the big acts and film rights to the BBC, which seems inconsistent!

[incident]

14 minutes ago, ghostdancer1 said:

While I don't disagree, I'd imagine that negotiation on that specific point could have been done with GFL/BBC giving up rights to use the footage in perpetuity.

 

Think that's almost certainly the case. Those are the "standard" terms, and it'd be a surprise if there was no room whatsoever for negotiation on some of the specifics. The fact that this has become a deal breaker implies to me that the two sides are far enough apart that it's come down to a lot more than just that specific aspect.

[ghostdancer1]

15 minutes ago, Jamm said:

To me that’s what has happened, GFL to Young’s team booked him on the pretence they would remove that (or other specific factors), thinking they could negotiate with the BBC an exception. 

 

But then down the road GFL tried and couldn’t negotiate that exception with the BBC.

 

GFL had to go back to Neil and advise they can’t proceed on the agreed terms, giving him a get out. He then feels annoyed because they agreed something in good faith, that the third party then enforced.

 

It’s the only thing that makes sense regarding the timing of everything, and Neil’s comments making him seem slighted. 
 

If at that point you blame the BBC for not agreeing to the exception, or Glastonbury for perhaps overstating their hand when booking Neil, well that’s up for discussion.

Yes, makes sense.

Not sure it makes sense for BBC to dig their heels in though.
GFL would go back and say "look, if we can't get around this, then he's not going to play, so we (and by extension you) have no headliner booked and have to come up with a sub-optimal headliner".
Do the BBC really need to retain rights to croaky old Neil Young's 2nd Glastonbury performance for international distribution 5 years after the fact? I think they'd prefer to take the hit and give up those rights than just not have him play. They'll still have the live and 30-day footage available....

If something was actually signed with an exception from the norm, then Young would just tell GFL to take it up with BBC as that's GFL's problem, not his.

 

Perhaps instead of continuing with negotiations, Young has just said "f**k it, I'm out", rather than playing chicken and seeing if BBC will cave.

Edited Thursday at 04:52 PM by ghostdancer1

[doogie]

From what I remember, Bowie in 2000 agreed to only televise a couple of songs, but the BBC quickly realised they were witnessing an important piece of music history and carried on filming anyway, even though the full footage never got broadcast until many years later.

 

They made the right call in my opinion, and I wish they'd done the same for Leonard Cohen in 2008.

[Lemon T-wig]

For up and coming acts, Glastonbury is a massive promo for themselves. But for established acts, they might not need it, and it's as much for Glasto as it is for an act (Neil in this case). He doesn't need the exposure and has his principles. I dont see why he shouldn't have a say in how much is broadcast, if any at all. He would have no control over what's seen by the viewers. I don't think the coverage did Cyndi Lauper any favours last year due to the quality of the broadcast.
It's a massive shame that the TV rights are so strict. Anyone should be able to say no.
Anyone who saw him last time will know it's a possible loss for the festival and not Neil. He was so brilliant. Even then, I'm not sure how popular he was (as in how big the crowd was), and I'm sure it'd be less this time (depending on who's on any other stages).

[StoneCircle]

6 minutes ago, doogie said:

From what I remember, Bowie in 2000 agreed to only televise a couple of songs, but the BBC quickly realised they were witnessing an important piece of music history and carried on filming anyway, even though the full footage never got broadcast until many years later.

 

They made the right call in my opinion, and I wish they'd done the same for Leonard Cohen in 2008.

 

Leonard Cohen was absolutely amazing, definitely tops my best Glastonbury ever performances! 😍

[Lemon T-wig]

11 minutes ago, doogie said:

From what I remember, Bowie in 2000 agreed to only televise a couple of songs, but the BBC quickly realised they were witnessing an important piece of music history and carried on filming anyway, even though the full footage never got broadcast until many years later.

 

They made the right call in my opinion, and I wish they'd done the same for Leonard Cohen in 2008.

Filming it for possible use in the future is one thing. Broadcasting the whole thing live is another

[stuie]

57 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

Anyway re televising, my opinion is that none of it should be televised.

 

TV coverage saved the festival.  Locals used to be scared of it, until they saw it wasn't that bad inside 🙂 

 

[incident]

18 minutes ago, Lemon T-wig said:

It's a massive shame that the TV rights are so strict. Anyone should be able to say no.

 

Thing is, we have no idea how strict they are.

 

All we know is that NY can't find something that works for him.

 

It's entirely plausible that the BBC tried to meet him halfway but that still wasn't enough.

[The Nal]

Just now, incident said:

 

Thing is, we have no idea how strict they are.

 

All we know is that NY can't find something that works for him.

 

It's entirely plausible that the BBC tried to meet him halfway but that still wasn't enough.

 

Wouldn't surprise me if he just said nah as soon as he saw the contract. Couldn't be arsed with it. 

[Rose-Colored Boy]

Just now, incident said:

 

Thing is, we have no idea how strict they are.

 

All we know is that NY can't find something that works for him.

 

It's entirely plausible that the BBC tried to meet him halfway but that still wasn't enough.

Could well be about his opinion of the BBC in general rather than anything specifically about his set. If he doesn’t want to be associated with them for political reasons then there’s not much ‘meeting in the middle’ that could be done. 

[incident]

Just now, The Nal said:

Wouldn't surprise me if he just said nah as soon as he saw the contract. Couldn't be arsed with it. 

 

Yep that's certainly possible. Unless the BBC or GFL come out swinging (which feels very unlikely), we'll likely never know exactly how far negotiations got or what concessions each side were and weren't prepared to make.

[Lemon T-wig]

2 minutes ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

Could well be about his opinion of the BBC in general rather than anything specifically about his set. If he doesn’t want to be associated with them for political reasons then there’s not much ‘meeting in the middle’ that could be done. 

I doubt that it's anything to do with his opinion on the BBC. What might that be? The BBC is non-commercial company, something that I imagine he'd support

[NorthernSoul52]

I feel negotiations must have got far enough for Young to air this laundry in public. It just makes him seem like more of a curmudgeon to me.

 

Having previously nixed tour dates due to it being indoor venues, I feel that the promoters he's got on hand aren't doing him any favours. He's either not being clear enough on his requests to them or they're just being daft.

[doogie]

18 minutes ago, StoneCircle said:

 

Leonard Cohen was absolutely amazing, definitely tops my best Glastonbury ever performances! 😍

 

I agree, that performance was magical.

 

I saw him a couple of other times on that tour and even though the setlist was probably the same, the magic wasn't there.

[Keithy]

1 hour ago, Drew3232 said:

I couldn’t believe the sheer amount of footage available on iPlayer last year, for a month, was great to be able to watch everything I missed at the fest. 
 

having ownership forever seems a bit much though, given bands are having to pay to get there themselves.

The sheer amount of footage is a problem itself. I know I've been guilty of being on the fence about a couple of acts and then thinking "ah, I'll catch them on iPlayer when I get home" and going to see an act on a non televised stage instead. 

 

It does seem to feel the BBC is everywhere at Glasto and sometimes we're performing monkeys for their footage. Glasto is no longer the escape it once used to be. You have to be prepared to accept you might appear on some of their footage at any given point. 

 

It is of course a dance with the devil. The festival has benefited hugely from the coverage and the days of it not selling out and potentially not having a future are long gone. 

[Keithy]

22 minutes ago, Lemon T-wig said:

Filming it for possible use in the future is one thing. Broadcasting the whole thing live is another

And in the Beebs case, honouring the agreement with Bowie until the moment he died and then broadcasting the full set that he never agreed to being broadcast... 

[Skip997]

18 minutes ago, stuie said:

 

TV coverage saved the festival.  Locals used to be scared of it, until they saw it wasn't that bad inside 🙂 

 

When did they start televising because up until about 1990 there were open drug sales including stalls with price lists. Up until the super fence there was a lot of proper crime inc mugging, tent robbery, inter gang violence inc a shooting. 

[Rose-Colored Boy]

6 minutes ago, Lemon T-wig said:

I doubt that it's anything to do with his opinion on the BBC. What might that be? The BBC is non-commercial company, something that I imagine he'd support

Israel Palestine most likely. Not sure what his opinions on that are but the BBC is a big bogeyman for most people who feel strongly about the subject, on either side. 

[incident]

2 minutes ago, Keithy said:

It does seem to feel the BBC is everywhere at Glasto and sometimes we're performing monkeys for their footage. Glasto is no longer the escape it once used to be. You have to be prepared to accept you might appear on some of their footage at any given point.

 

I've never got that impression - there's a crazy number of stages at Glastonbury and the BBC only cover what, 6 of them? Very easy to avoid and I usually do without trying.

 

Even the "field" pieces from the more interesting parts of the site seem to have become less and less frequent over the years as they've ramped up the on-stage coverage so you're less likely to bump into them in Green Futures than you would have been 15 years back..

[judyblue110]

4 minutes ago, NorthernSoul52 said:

I feel negotiations must have got far enough for Young to air this laundry in public. It just makes him seem like more of a curmudgeon to me.

 

Having previously nixed tour dates due to it being indoor venues, I feel that the promoters he's got on hand aren't doing him any favours. He's either not being clear enough on his requests to them or they're just being daft.

 

No tour dates were nixed. A proposed schedule was reviewed and revised with Neil's feedback.

 

To say they were nixed would be to imply dates were booked, which they weren't.