Glastonbury virgin Neil Lonsdale decided Kanye West didn’t fit in with his rather narrow view of what was considered Glastonbury appropriate and launched a petition on Change.org to have him removed from the bill and replaced with a ‘rock’ act. The petition garnered nearly 100,000 signatures before Neil closed the petition in response to Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis revealing her distaste for the petition. What is patently obvious, but no one seems willing to discuss, is the sheer hypocrisy involved in such a petition.
Kanye brings a lot of it on himself. Stage invasions, rants etc. You don’t have to work all that hard to hate him. Weird though that people like Ozzy Osbourne are beloved. You know, Ozzy Osbourne lead singer of Black Sabbath. A man who said of the 9/11 terrorist attacks:
“I wasn’t scared, I was excited! It was my kind of craziness, y’know.“
He released the usual ‘out of context’ statement to a pretty much zero reaction and that was that. Oh there was that time he took so many drugs he tried to strangle his wife to death.
But don’t be mistaken into thinking that stopped him taking drugs. No the attempted murder of the mother of his children wasn’t enough, he decided to kick the drugs only when he fell ill.
So if we’re keeping score: Ozzy’s drug fuelled murderous antics are A-OK, but so help me God if Kanye interrupts another millionaires speech!
In an interview, Neil Lonsdale named some potential replacements for Kanye. While all brilliant artists, the level of diva like conduct to downright criminal behaviour is a little ironic. Jack White was named and excusing the whole 80k tour rider, we can discuss Jack White being arrested for assaulting Von Bondies singer Jason Stollsteimer.
Or we can discuss that when he and his ex wife Karen Elson amicably separated and shared custody of their children, she later filed a restraining order against White fearing for her safety due to threatening messages and feeling he wasn’t fit as a father. Not to mention the bizarre claim that he wanted to pull his two children out of school because they went to the same school as Dan Auerbach’s (of The Black Keys) 5 year old daughter:
‘My concern with Auerbach is because I don’t want the kids involved in any of that crap … That’s a possible 12 fucking years I’m going to have to be sitting in kids’ chairs next to that asshole with other people trying to lump us in together. He gets yet another free rein to follow me around and copy me and push himself into my world,’
Neil also named The Libertines and Oasis as possible replacements. Again fantastic bands but controversy is an understatement with them seeing everything from assault, drunk/drug driving, to animal cruelty. Neil and many others seem to have no problem with them. Kanye got a photographer in a headlock once, but Liam Gallagher….
More troubling than that, is the comment from Neil and others that Kanye’s performance of ‘All Day’ at The Brit Awards was ‘threatening’. Quite how a group of men on stage at an awards ceremony can threaten you through your TV is baffling. And surely such a person shouldn’t be allowed outside for fear of loud noises and dirty looks. And Neil denies any accusations of racism, but given that the performance was screened a week after the world saw a group of Chelsea fans force a black man off a train in Paris while singing racist chants, what is Neil really threatened by? Is it the bassline on ‘All Day‘ THREATENING to destroy the speakers on his TV? Or that these black men in hoodies are threatening his sheltered, entitled white existence? Where is Neil’s petition to ban all Chelsea fans from Glastonbury? Surely they are more threatening?
Given the actual crimes committed by many of the other acts welcome by the entitled and the fact that Kanye’s biggest crime is interrupting speeches, hiding behind ‘he’s a talentless douche’ is at its best a mask for snot nosed elitism and at it’s worst racism. You don’t have to like Kanye or hip hop to appreciate that he is many things but talentless he is not.
‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy‘ was one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the decade. And I guess songs like ‘Crack Music‘ aren’t about how the US government introduced drugs into the black community as a means of destroying it; but actually completely meaningless right?
‘New Slaves‘ isn’t a song about how racism is still present in America regardless of your tax bracket…just more ‘bitches and ho’s’ right?
And this isn’t a stunning performance….
Somehow the idea of Glastonbury being a festival of open mindedness and diversity seems to have been lost. But you know what here’s a rock band (for Neil and co) who can say it better than I:
