borntohang

There probably are because unforeseen cancellation clauses go on every tour contract, but Live Nation aren't just going to front up nine figure sums if they didn't think it wasn't going to happen. People were talking like both sides haven't been reliably fronting arenas for a decade since the bust-up days.

Did anybody really suggest for a second it was going to be a bomb? They could have come out and farted three blind mice to rapturous applause but both the Noel and Liam bands are, at bare minimum, stadium-level outfits and these are songs they've been playing for decades so I'm not surprised they sound great. I'd probably manage to do some vocal warm-ups with 50m on the table too.

Festival talk has reminded me we once got a dodgy golf cart with a blown fuse. We bodged it with the foil bit out of a fag packet and it ran like a champ for a week. The following year, same festival, I got a suspiciously familiar golf cart. Opened up the fuse box out of curiosity and found that ciggy foil is much more durable than expected, or possibly that a series of unlucky crews were inspired by our initial bodge. At least it wasn't a nail this time.

I have the opposite story: the last time I went two of my social circle who were dating had bought tickets together and then split up just before the festival. They couldn't afford/didn't want to lose the tickets so went together in a tiny tent and somehow every act I actually saw they were stood somewhere at the back looking incredibly miserable. Why didn't they just split up and go find some interesting things/hot people, in this huge festival the size of a city, full of interesting things/hot people? It is a mystery for the ages.

Oh yeah, I've been to shows at Glastonbury with five people at them. There are just so many artists, so many small stages, and not enough time in the day. On my second visit I was still discovering entire areas of the festival site with multiple stages I'd never even seen listed on a timetable. Lots of them were just vendors or art groups throwing up a riser in the corner of their location or similar. It's not your standard "main stage and two big tops" festival setup. That works both ways though: there are punters who go to hang about Strummerville/Arcadia/Shangri-La for the entire weekend and will never even be within earshot of Pyramid, so there are built in crowds for some of the more niche stages.

My old man has been volunteering with Oxfam for 20+ years now. He was in the field again this summer shift-leading stewards on Vehicle Gate 3a which is where the interesting people come through. He claims it'll be his last year as he'll be 75 after the fallow '26, but we're not convinced. If it wasn't such a dog of a five-hour drive I reckon they'd eventually be carrying him out in a box because he loves the festival. Doesn't even go to watch bands but just wanders and occasionally texts me updates like "some old git looks like a muppet playing on Pyramid now". I did a few years with him when I was younger, although only twice at Glastonbury. Eventually my future wife started tagging along and we did many years at Leeds and Latitude plus assorted others we wouldn't have got chance to visit on our minimal budget. Hope your daughter enjoyed it as much as we did.

Sat in with a friend's band over the weekend and between wireless guitar systems and cheap IEMs there was so much crappy signal firing around onstage that my wired IEMs started to pick up interference even when not plugged into the XLR. Hard work and not a problem I've ever had before, but luckily only a one shot gig.

Zak out, Scott in to finish the final tour apparently. Pete says Zak has left to pursue other projects and Zak said he was fired. It's all refreshingly untrained and up close PR compared to the Foos and their faceless radio silence, I must admit.

TB can be a bit fussy but the Effects forum does specifically have a longstanding sticky thread warning zero-tolerance on 'real bassists don't use effects' posting in the Effects forum, whether humerus or otherwise. I doubt the mods get offended as much as they got sick of clearing up the mess every time that joke got posted and inevitably turned into a flame war. BC has the advantage of being a smaller userbase so you're more likely to know which particular berk is winding you up and how sincere they're being.

74% (exactly) of starting a tribute is finding a good pun. The band stuff comes later. Some of my favourites we've seen or worked with, in no order: The She Street Band (all-female Springsteen) Slady The G52s (Glasgow based B52s who formed to play two shows with us) The B-Hives (actually got franchised as official tribute by The Hives) Stones N'Roses (US based Stone Roses, Rolling Stones, and GnR tribute. Also play as Geezer and a bunch of other pun tributes)

Also me, although I don't play bass for them. It's been going seven years now so doesn't feel that niche any more. We have the advantage of there being basically no casual fans of Devo - either you've never heard of them, or don't like them, or you're a fanatic. Keeps the crowd numbers ticking over nicely.

Double post!

My friend briefly ran a club night called "Black sABBAth" at a local DIY space. They only played two bands, which you can probably guess, and luckily they have enough hits between them to fill a decent set. It was a good time, considering it was mostly a space to get out of your head while some music played. Back on topic, I'm actually a one-man Mountain Goats tribute called The Best Ever Mountain Goats Tribute Out Of Doncaster which I sometimes take to the local open mics to generally bemused reactions (unless there's another MG fan attending, in which case they act like a paleontologist finding a live Triceratops wandering around their local dog field). It's not a money spinner, but a man has to have a hobby and I believe that getting paid for all of your gigs isn't healthy for the soul.

Most digital reverbs have an LPF/HPF feature somewhere in the algorithm, even if it's not accessible. The TC Hall of Fame lets you access those parameters in the toneprint software and any of the HoF family will do it, so the Mini will work if you're pushed for space.

Based on the amount of smoke backstage last time I saw NWR with Wilko he might be too stoned to actually die. Still played like a bastard though.