Hutz now too grand for festivals

Eugene Hutz apparently doesn't care for the entertainments of the young people any more, not now he's had a sniff of the a-list and their top table:

He told a reporter from the Mirror backstage [at Reading], "I preferred the gig I did with Madonna at Live Earth."

Presumably because, as he was with Madonna at Live Earth, he was kept well away from Mirror journalists when he was backstage.

Madonna's birthday do

Victoria Newton seems convinced that Madonna's birthday party was "traveller-themed", seemingly solely because Eugene Hutz played some music. Unfortunately, it's a theme she warms too a little too quickly:

I NEVER thought that MADONNA would spend her 49th birthday with a bunch of gipsies.

But the Queen Of Pop — who has millionaires BRAD PITT, GWYNETH PALTROW and STELLA McCARTNEY as friends — slummed it on her big day yesterday with a traveller-themed bash for 20 close pals.

The Sun doesn't have the best track record when it comes to Travellers - they ran a 'Stamp On The Camps' campaign a while back, and one of their journalists apparently opened an interview with a traveller by asking "where did you get the money for that television", so it's perhaps unsurprising at the tone of Newton's piece. Just try imagining her opening gambit with, say, "Pakistani" or "Germans" or even "taxi drivers" in place of "gipsie" - why does Newton feel able to suggest that spending time with people of any race would be "slumming it"?

It gets worse, though - the piece is headlined:

Madge gives her pals some gip

Even if the idea of rich people playing at being gypsies - on a par with blacking up, or that "African" party they had at Windsor Castle a year or two back - doesn't make you feel queasy, the use of 'gip' surely will. Newton's defence of a racial slur would presumably be it was meant in a punning way. Although since the other meaning of the word is pain, it doesn't make sense as a pun, either.

Madonna at least has the defence of being known for her well-meaning condescension; Newton really should know better.

Hutz signs on for more work with Madonna

As if blowing out T in the Park in order for three minutes flunkeying to Madonna wasn't enough, Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello has picked up a bit more work from Madge: he's got a bit in Filth and Wisdom. Hutz loves working with Madonna:

"I think [Madonna] was fantastic. She's such a dynamic force. You can always measure a director by how specific he is or she is, and she was very specific.

"She had very energetic visions but at the same time there was a lot of room for me to do my own thing," he told Billboard.

"It was super fun and perfectly respectable, and it ended up being quite a collaborative project."

So, simultaneously, she's a collaborative director who has very specific ideas about what she wants. Surprising, but then since she can churn out the same CO₂ as 1000 other people and be an eco warrior at the same time, who knows what other paradoxes she can power?

Broadsheet round-up:

Alexis Petridis was down the front (or, at least, perched comfortably in the VIP area) for the Arcade Fire and the Guardian:

Variety of end-of-days scenarios suggested in lyrics seem oddly more pertinent when you're listening to them up to your knees in slurry, stood next to a disconcerting man in a jester's hat, sniffing amyl nitrate. In addition, certain lyrics take on a curiously prophetic bent given inclement conditions: "Come out of the rain!" exhorts Butler at one juncture. "You can do it!" Minor mid-set lull blown away by cataclysmic finale, involving mass singalong to Wake Up.

It seems that the BBC had focused quite heavily on the mid-set lull, then.

Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello seized the Guardian blog to ruminate on festivals which have lost their soul:

As for festivals we haven't enjoyed playing: there was some horrible thing... I don't need to say which one, but I don't enjoy playing where all I see is fucking Miller Lite commercials in my face and tons of fucking cops.

I don't know whether Glastonbury is a travellers' festival still: that's not what I heard but I'm going to find out for myself after this. I heard that it's a land of rape and murder. Some experts, some reliable sources told me. But of course Glastonbury still has the ability to do change people's minds and alter their consciousness. You've just got to get the right bands and the right people will come, and they'll have the right reaction - liberation, catharsis, grabbing the tits of somebody else's girlfriend. You know - the usual!

The Telegraph has attempted to out-grump the Mail by sending Christopher Howse along to Worthy Farm. He's the "only festival goer with a tie", which means he can expect pete Doherty to seek him out to borrow it later on, then. Christoper hasn't fallen for the "traveller's festival" story any more than Eugene has:

Among the 30,000 cars in the car parks, there are plenty of Audis, Volvos and BMWs. Ten thousand, almost all young, came greenly by train and then chugged the last miles on dirty old buses.

"We're doing a dance degree at Greenwich," says my 20-year-old neighbour, pointing to her fair-haired friend. But now they're spending the weekend working in a vegan cafe, hoping to slip out to see Bjork. Bjork has been here before, she just can't remember.

If for some Glastonbury is joining the social season with Ascot and Henley, its style is still young and grungy. At Henley gentlemen must still wear ties. Here I spent 24 hours without seeing anyone else with one on. Ascot cocktail dresses and feather hats can look vulgar. Here the middle class come in muddy disguise.

Over in the The Times, Pete Paphides looks at what the bill tells us about the modern world:

Winehouse aside, it was a bill that rammed home the point that we are living in a postOasis age, where supersized indie bands trumpet the everyman values that allow their fans to live vicariously through them. Dundee’s bafflingly popular practitioners of indie dirges, The View, seemed to suit the worsening conditions. If only their fans’ chant – “The View are on fire!” – were true.