We’ve all been to gigs where we’re waiting around like Vladimir and Estragon and the main “turn” doesn’t deign to actually crack the boards until well beyond the witching hour. Finally some punters have cracked and said enough.
thoughts?
You’re on after Crispy Ambulance
by 32 Comments
Nothing to be done, except spanking.
Yes, Big Audio Dynamite came on around midnight for a weeknight gig. Had to leave just as they came on because I had a job and I couldn’t miss the very last train home. I was really pissed off about that.
Serves you right for, like, working for the System.
Fair point.
Worst one I ever saw was Peter Tosh at Manchester Apollo in 79/80.
Came on over two hours late – rumour was he’d gone to Sheffield
to get some ‘erb
Trying to cross the Pennines after 8pm, he must have been high
Trans. Pennine. Express.
Replacement. Bus. Service.
I can hear the Kraftwerk version of that; manual transmission graunching between each word, and a ‘boggler-boggler’ from the diesel engine.
Boggler-boggler rang a bell. Steve Bell in fact.
Arf!
Peter Tosh on a train? I think not.
I see a coach full of smoke picking its precarious way through the Peaks, with principal passenger Peter pontificating between puffs.
…sorry, I’ll get you a towel…
Was about to post about this, Alexis Petridis wrote a column supporting her and has been roundly lambasted in the comments below the article.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/jan/19/you-want-to-sue-madonna-for-being-late-on-stage-shes-an-artist-not-a-service-industry-worker
Some make the very good point that there are 100s of people working at these ginormous arenas who probably have to get up and take kids to school in the morning. Also trains/buses stop running (not in New York though)
I went to see The Stones at Shepherd’s Bush Empire once, they came on really late, allegedly so there was enough time for Ronnie Wood to sober up before the performance started. Tube had stopped running, had to get a taxi to the other side of London where I was staying at significant expense. Great gig though. A New Order show in Swansea was very late too, they appeared to be well refreshed when they finally made it on stage.
Have been to gigs in bars in Montreal (a late night city) where sometimes the headliner didn’t start playing until 11.30 or so. However that was for dozens or a hundred people at most, many of whom didn’t have to get up in the morning and you also kind of knew the score before going out.
Madonna is just being a diva, she didn’t do it in Europe because these days they would cut short the gig and presumably have to hand out refunds. Appalling behaviour.
Yebbut Madonna could punch a thousand babies in the face live on TV and a lot of peeps, critics included, would chuckle and say “Ha ha, good old Madge being Madge, bless her!”… quite apart from the long and glorious history of US acts treating non-US audiences like absolute shit.
On the other hand we need someone who is a veteran of going to see The Fall to ask why big name acts are held to a different standard….
Think you may be getting our Madge mixed up with Donna Trump in that first para
Donna Trump?
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Donna
Donna who?
Donna Trump
Ohhh, pooo, you done a trump, smelly….
….adults are also available
Odds on someone here was in the Fall.
Not me, but my granny was.
Just how pompous is that article? I thought it might the headline and the subs’ fault, but no. Hard to read without an involuntary roll of the eyes in fact. She’s an ‘Artist’? Do fuck off. And like that would be any excuse.
If it was, say, Ryan Adams they’d soon have something to say about it.
To counter that, the Birchmere in Alexandria was excellent.
Doors open 5. Grab a drink at the bar area.
Hall doors open at 6. Go in and order top up drinks and dinner.
Act is generally on stage by 7.30.
Done, and dusted by 10 – 1030 if they were really pushing it.
Very civilized.
Probably mentioned this before, went to see Van Morrison in New York. Ticket said 7.30 sharp! Band came on at 7.20 and played a couple of tracks to warm up before Van bounced on to the stage. Some people were wandering in, beer in hand, looking for their seats at 830 or even 845. Show finished at 9pm sharp!
20+ years ago, when I ‘worked’* in ver Biz, I got to know the man who booked gigs in the 12 Bar club in That London.
Roddy Frame was playing a secret mid-week fan-club solo show. I managed to charm my way in.
The last fast train (45 mins, 15 mins drive home) left King’s Cross at 23:21, teeth brushed and in bed by half past midnight. The next train left at 12:21, stopped at all stations, in bed about 2:30am.
I suffered an hour-long set by a New York performance poet and his mate ‘playing’ an ironing board. He then did a 45-minute encore. Roddy came on a few moments after I decided to pack it in and head for home at 11pm. As I ran to the bus stop, I could hear the first verse of Oblivious echoing up Denmark Street.
(*) worked implied paid, but I never was.
Or the main act doesn’t turn up Be Bop Deluxe at Leeds Uni 76, support from Doctors of Madness. Support finishes then nothing for quite some time. Rumours that they’d had played TOTP and would prefer to be there. Since read that Leeds/Bradford airport was fog bound (it was February) not even sure we got our money back.
Saw Davy Spillane once, long wait asked the promoter what time he was coming on “When we’ve sobered him up”
There have been others, the main act doing his encore on the next day after several supports and breaks.
Nowadays I prefer concerts in the afternoon and home for a late tea, though I’m out next Thursday night, hopefully for not too late.
Hepworth is going to enjoy discussing this on the next podcast. He’s been going on about it for years.
2 people only up in arms it says, I believe.
Hepworth thinks we all want an early start and early finish, home in time for bed at 9. Rock ‘n’ roll!
Glory be, as ever, to @The Mods, but why doesn’t this appear on the Forum page?
Has the combination of Moosey + “crack” + “spanking” set off the NSFW alarm?
I think the video in the Green Day video may be the culprit….has caused this thread and others posted earlier on the same date to disappear from the forum @mod-team-2
Primal Scream at Brixton Academy for a GOBDGU show, the night Kurt Cobain topped himself.
Arrived about 7pm, they came on about 1am. A combination of night buses & taxis back to the tube station where I’d parked my car. Crawled into bed as the rest of the household were getting up for their breakfast.
I waited for four or five hours for Run DMC to show up as headliners in Subterranea some time in the 90s. There was no shortage of members of their entourage bigging them up and assuring us all that they were “in da house”. It was perhaps in our mutual interests that I’d called it a day at around 1am at which point any enthusiasm I may have had had turned to deep resentment. It totally put me off them forever.
There is a pattern to be seen here.
Drug/drink casualties aside, the more “up themselves” the artist, the more likely they are to take the piss with their paying punters.