Smile, Citizens: Download attendees to be scanned by cops

From the "the innocent have nothing to fear" files of our police state: Download Festival goers are all going to have their faces scanned by Leicestershire Police.

You weren't supposed to know that, though:

We have also learned that the Police Oracle's publication of the interview has caused significant upset for management at Leicestershire Police, who did not want any advance publicity of their "new" surveillance project.

The public would have been informed that it had been placed under surveillance after the event had ended, presumably as part of a "you didn't know, therefore it wasn't intrusive", justification for the scheme.

This isn't really justified by any disruption at Download - indeed, last year Leicestershire Police were rightly proud of how little crime was recorded at the festival.

So, at a mostly well-behaved festival, everyone is going to be treated as a suspect and even have their faces looked at to see if they're 'wanted'.

The official site explains what police will be doing on site. As you'd expect from a sneaky surveillance project, there's no mention that they'll be scanning people to see if they're wrong 'uns.

Downloadable: Wayne Hussey

Have you seen those black feather Christmas trees? It's like the Winterval is finally opening up to Goths. And the Goths are opening up to Christmas. Look:

Yes, Wayne Hussey does White Christmas. Here's a bit of his reason why:

O come all ye faithful………
Just wanted to wish a very merry Christmas and happy new year to you and your loved ones and as a token of my gratitude for your continued support for both myself and The Mission I have recorded a Christmas song just for you which is available as a free download from https://soundcloud.com/waynehussey/white-christmas

If only Bing was still around for a duet. That'd be a Christmas special.

[via Slicing Up Eyeballs]

Download: Manson wears a hat

Light from a dead star, as Marilyn Manson tries too hard at Download:

Marilyn Manson played Download this evening (June 13) and was joined onstage by a small entourage of make up and costume assistants, who primped and preened him after almost every song.

Wow. He's gone from being deeply gothy to Ugly Betty.

Tell us about the entrance, then, NME:

Manson arrived on the main stage at 7.20pm [BST], ten minutes after he was scheduled to appear. A giant black sheet which was covering the stage dropped dramatically to reveal...

Ooh! What? What did the god of twisted-evil-headfuckery have behind his big sheet? Virgins being deflowered by zombies? Priests having their innards fed to hounds? What? How did Manson twist everyone's minds?

...to reveal Manson sporting a gigantic hat.

Oh. A big hat.

Did I say Ugly Betty? It's more a mid-season challenge on Britain's Next Top Model.

Still, anyone following the NME store's suggestions of Manson records would rediscover a sense of nauseated horror:

Download shift blame for Faith No More falsies

The promotion of Faith No More's appearance at Download as "their only UK gig" has caused some upset to fans, who bought tickets in good faith only to discover that, erm, they're going to be at Reading, too.

Download Festivals' John Probyn has been explaining to efestivals what went wrong and why it wasn't their fault, oh no:

[Efestivals]:There has been some controversy surrounding the status of Faith No More's appearance, as it was first billed as the 'only UK show of the year', and then simply 'first UK show of the year'. Many fans have suggested that they were mislead over the exclusivity of the band playing, is that something you guys hope to fully address soon?

[Probyn]We don't tell lies, we give people information based on facts at the time. What's the point in me misleading a fan, is that going to make them want to buy tickets in the future?

[ef]Was the band's 'self-confirmation' for Reading and Leeds as big a surprise for you and Andy as it was for everyone else? It came out of the blue...

[P]Every day is a day at school in this business.

[ef]Though the festivals obviously have different core audiences, if Faith No More do end up playing Reading, do you think it would undermine Download, particularly given the hype surrounding Faith No More's announcement?

[p]Look at the line-up on the Sunday at Reading last year, did that undermine Download and stop 50,000 people having a great time?

Hmm. You might think that, if your big selling point is an exclusive gig, you wouldn't need any extra business education to ensure that the word 'exclusive' appeared somewhere in the contract.

Download tells punters: We're your bitches

Aware of its position low on the pecking order of UK festivals, Download organisers are responding to audience demands for this year's festival.

Yes, sadly, this is actual news: festival organisers listening to the people who pay their ticket prices and giving them what they want. And even that wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for the recession and the over-supply of festival events:

[Vice-president of music at Live Nation, Andy] Copping admits that festivals are being forced to listen to their fans, many of whom will inevitably scale back their spending on music this year.

He added: "You can't just find a bit of grass, put up a stage, put bands on and expect people to turn up.

"They expect far more these days, if they're going be spending a hundred pounds a ticket, you've got to offer them a really good deal."

The really, really good deal - of not charging them a hundred quid in the first place - doesn't seem to have occurred to him. There's something almost wistful in his acceptance that, oddly, people aren't going to break their budgets to be treated like particularly low-standard cattle.

So, what can this year's Downloaders look forward to?

They include cutting the distance between stages and campgrounds and improving the toilet facilities.

Seriously, LiveNation needed an online forum to tell them that. That must have been an eye-opening day when the results were fed back: "Hey, it turns out that people don't want to have to piss in a small plastic box filled to the bubbling brim with other people's shit and smeared with blood and puke." You couldn't buy that sort of insight.

Live Nation claims environmental issues are top of the agenda for some fans this year and it is looking at ways to improve waste management at the site.

In other words, it's going to tell the support acts to not complain when bottles of wee come flying at them.

Kid Rock insists he was soggy and damp, thank you

Back in June, Kid Rock failed to show at Download, with organisers insisting he had dehyrdation.

Rock has suddenly decided to get upset about this, insisting it wasn't true:

"They (festival bosses) treated me like fuck. There was just one trailer for my whole band. We had no water, no bathroom, no rider.

"The final straw was when they wouldn't give my crew any food or drinks vouchers.

And the star insists he warned promoters he would pull out if his needs were not catered for - and reacted badly to their snubs by urinating in the organiser's office.

He adds, "I called the promoter and told him he had two hours to get it sorted or I was out. They did nothing so I visited the promoter's office, took a piss on his couch and left."

Oh, boo hoo, they had to share a trailer and Rock's "crew" would have to pay for sandwiches and beer out of Rock's fee. Does Rock think that throwing a tantrum over having to share a caravan makes him look better than people thinking he forgot to drink?

Still, pissing on furniture at least establishes you have no fluid problems.

Download offloads Kid Rock

We're not sure it would have been very much of a disappointment - a bit like being told the understudy was playing the rear end of the pantomime cow - but Kid Rock pulled out of Download yesterday because he was "dehydrated".

Well, it was nearly fifteen degrees yesterday.

Great moments in popular culture, number 378

Yesterday, one of the break-bumper puzzles on Countdown was the word 'DODOLAWN' with the clue 'Get this festival on your computer'.

The solution was Download. A reference to the Monsters of Rock lite on the teatime stairlift quiz? Such times to live in.