Monday, June 27, 2011

Glastonbury 2011: Was there a Zane Lowe thing?

Last night, watching Zane Lowe and Lauren Laverne wrap up after Beyonce had finished, it was mildly interesting to see someone on the BBC coverage say something other than "that was fabulous", but it took the Daily Mail to turn Zane Lowe's decision to watch something else into a point of national outrage:

Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe churlishly refused to comment on her set in a discussion with BBC 6 Music presenter Lauren Laverne - and caused outrage on Twitter.

Lauren had been saying why Beyonce was a great pop artist who'd put in a fantastic performance in the true spirit of Glastonbury and asked Lowe his thoughts.

But Lowe mockingly burst out laughing before simply saying rudely: 'I went and watched Queens Of The Stoneage. Here's Kool And The Gang.'
Is that rude? Is it churlish to say 'you know, with there being about seventeen or eighteen different bands playing, I chose to go and see something else; after all, my show on Radio One isn't really the sort of place you'd hear Beyonce so I figured it'd make sense for me to go and see the type of act I play on the radio instead'?

If Fearne Cotton had said something like that, maybe it'd be worth mentioning. Given that she has a contract which only allows her to say that things are "fantastic" and all.

But Zane Lowe having gone to see Queens Of The Stone Age isn't news.
He had been due to continue hosting the aftershow coverage on the channel - but when it became clear that Beyoncé was going to be doing an interview following her set, he made a rather see-through excuse that he had to leave the site.

BBC Radio 2 DJ Jo Whiley then stepped in to do the interview with Lauren instead.
Is that true, though, Daily Mail? Of course it isn't. In fact, earlier in the evening, Zane Lowe had been complaining that he'd been told the aftershow interview was going to be an all-woman affair [1 hour 23 minutes in]:
"I just want to clear this up. When I started to talk about doing Glastonbury coverage on Beyonce day, I was told it ... it was going to be all about the ladies. I was like, Goddammit, that's sexist.
So, several hours before Beyonce came on stage, Zane Lowe had made it clear he wasn't going to be part of the interview team. On television. Still, why let the facts cloud a story, eh, Daily Mail?

Mind you, if you believe the subtitles, Lowe wasn't talking about Beyonce at all:
The Mail's picture captions even try to suggest that Lowe wasn't just not watching, but almost that he tried to ruin everyone else's fun:
Lot of love: Despite the likes of Zane Lowe, most people enjoyed Beyoncé's set even if they weren't massive fans
Yeah - I'd be really enjoying this set if I didn't think that at some point after the music is over, a television programme I won't be able to see might contain someone not saying that he enjoyed it in the way I am.

[Part of Glastonbury 2011 full coverage]


2 comments:

Simon said...

Actually, my favourite bit of the Lowe-Laverne badinage was a bit later when Lauren told a glowing Zane she felt too old for Pendulum. Lauren being four years the younger of the two, of course.

Francis said...

It was funny because every time there was a crowd shot during Beyonce, it was almost exclusively women – to the point where it seemed like there were next to no men watching her at all. Sexism!

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