Isle of Wight Festival: God apparently didn't get tickets

With no Glastonbury festival this year, the regulars had to find some other place to go. The cascading heavy rain which makes everyone's life a misery apparently chose to attend the Isle of Wight festival instead:

Problems began on Thursday morning when the main car park had become waterlogged from heavy rain overnight.

Organisers were forced to open extra fields and bring in metal tracks so vehicles could be directed to overflow car parks. Many had to be towed because of the mud.

Naturally, being an island meant that the knock-on effect of traffic gridlock was a ferry fuck-up:

Mud at the festival site caused by heavy rain led to huge delays in parking and resulted in tailbacks as far back as the port of Fishbourne.

Three boats carrying about 600 people were held in the Solent until the cars stuck at the port had moved and the passengers could be discharged.

A spokesman for ferry operator Wightlink said: “We can't do anything else with them until we can get into port to unload. At the moment we are in the lap of the gods with the Isle of Wight Festival.

"As soon as the berth is free they will be able to unload, but we just don't know when that will be. It has nothing to do with us, and it's not a problem caused by us."

When people eventually make it to the site, things will get even more miserable for them.

Pearl Jam have managed to arrive.

Eddie Vedder crowdsources DCMA takedowns

You know what's hard? Keeping an eye on everywhere on the internet, to see if someone is breaching your precious, precious copyrights.

What, though, if you could unleash the power of your superfans? That's what Pearl Jam appear to be doing, with The Ten Club issuing takedowns against someone who stuck up a snatch of Vedder playing live.

What a great scam - you charge people $20 to join a fan club, which then gets deployed as a private copyright police force. Dave Cameron should speak to Ed and see if he can bring some of that magic to community support officers.

Eddie Vedder: Speed king

Eddie Vedder has revealed - to not very much surprise - that he never spends longer than 30 minutes writing a song.

From this, we can surmise that it must take Vedder about 23 minutes or so to find a pen and paper when he has an idea for a song.

Vedder fights for Tomorrow

It really is a pity that Pearl Jam sound so bloody awful, as Eddie Vedder really seems a genuinely nice guy who often is right about stuff. Like his attempt to organise support for Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World cartoon.

Tomorrow's strip has been dropped from twelve US alternative weeklies:

“Obviously that means a loss of income for him,” Vedder says. “Perhaps even worse is the lost connection to readers who faithfully turn to Tom and his sardonic penguin Sparky to help them survive the absurdities of the world around us.”
[...]
“When you write, please be polite and respectful,” Vedder asks. “Many of the editors at these papers are friends of the cartoonists we’re supporting... after all, they’re the folks who gave the cartoons a home in the first place. Suspending the work was a corporate decision made during incredibly tough times for all newspapers.”

It's not only Tomorrow who's suffering: Matt Groening's 22 year-old Life In Hell has also been caught up in the cull, as Village Voice Media drops all its syndicated cartoons. And the papers are also losing staff writers. The question might be if there's any alt weeklies left to not publish cartoons in for much longer.

Kanye blogs. Then BLOGS SOME MORE!!!!!!!!

Kanye's Boonaroon experience wasn't a happy one. Now, he's extending the pain by posting a blog entry about it:

I am sick of negative people who just sit around trying 2 plot my downfall... Why???? I understand if people don't like me because I like me or if people think tight clothes look gay or people say I run my mouth to much, But this Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I've ever had in my life. This is the most offended I've ever been... this is the maddest I ever will be. I'm typing so fucking hard I might break my fucking Mac book Air!!!!!!!! Call me any name you want.... arrogant, conceited, narcissistic, racist, metro, fag whatever you can think of.... BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL! NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL! THIS SHOWS NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO BE GOOD AT SOMETHING THERE WILL BE PEOPLE THERE TO LIE ABOUT YOU AND BRING YOU DOWN! LIKE WAYNE SAYS PLEASE DON'T SHOOT ME DOWN CAUSE I'M FLYING! I'M FUCKING HURT BY THIS ONE. ALL I CARE ABOUT ARE THE FANS. JUST SAY THIS OUT LOUD IN A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE, "KANYE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT GIVING A GOOD PERFORMANCE." CAN ANYONE HONESTLY SAY THAT ????????? HAS ANYONE EVEN TAKEN THE TIME TO AT LEAST DO THE MATH??? BONNAROO SHOULD HAVE RELEASED A STATEMENT IN MY DEFENSE BUT SINCE THEY HAVEN'T LET'S BREAK DOWN THE WALLS ON THIS TRUMAN SHOW AND LET YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY OCCURRED!!! FOR OVER A MONTH WE WENT BACK AND FORTH ON WETHER OR NOT WE COULD EVEN FIT MY STAGE AT THE FESTIVAL. ONE DAY THEY WOULD SAY YES... WE'D SEND THEM OUR SPECS THEN THEY THEY'D SAY OK... THEN THEY WOULD SEND SPECS BACK THAT DIDN'T FIT THE STAGE. WE WERE OBVIOUSLY DEALING WITH FUCKING IDIOTS WHO DIDN'T REALLY HAVE THE CAPACITY TO REALLY PUT ON THIS SHOW PROPERLY. THEY TRIED 2 GIVE ME A TIME SLOT WERE IT WAS STILL LIGHT OUTSIDE ... I HAVE A FUCKING LIGHT SHOW DUMB ASS, IT'S NOT CALLED GLOW IN THE DARK FOR NO REASON SQUID BRAINS! MY PEOPLE WORKED OUT A COMPROMISED STAGE PLOT AND A 3AM TIME SLOT AND I AGREED. FAST FOWARD TO THE DAY OF THE SHOW. MY PRODUCTION MANAGER TRIED TO LOAD IN FOR 24 HOURS BEFORE I WENT ON STAGE BUT THE FESTIVAL WOULDN'T ALLOW US TO DO ANYTHING UNTILL PEARL JAM LEFT THE STAGE. PEARL JAM ENDED ONE HOUR
LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT THAT POINT WE'RE RACING AGAINST THE SUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT 4:20AM DON COMES BACK 2 THE BUS AND TELLS ME, " IT WOULD TAKE 45 MORE MINUTES TO PUT ALL YOUR PYRO IN!" I SAY I HAVE TO GET OUT THERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE . I HIT THE STAGE AND PEOPLE HAD BEEN THROWING SHIT ON THE STAGE AND HAD ACTUALLY HIT THE JANE SCREEN WITH, I GUESS BOTTLES OR SOMETHING AND HAD BROKEN MY FUCKING SCREEN. REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE A SHORTY AND WATER WOULD HIT THE TV?????? WHEN I GOT 2 "THROUGH THE WIRE" I STEPPED ON THE FRONT PART OF MY STAGE AND THERE WAS SO MUCH LIQUID ON THE STAGE I COULDN'T MOVE WITHOUT SLIPPING. I HAD TO ADJUST MY WHOLE PERFORMANCE STYLE BECAUSE OF IT. A FEW MORE SONGS IN AND THE SONG WAS ON IT'S WAY UP.. I CUT A FEW SONGS FROM THE SET BECAUSE I WANTED PEOPLE 2 EXPERIENCE STRONGER WHILE THERE WAS STILL SOME DARKNESS TO PERFORM IT IN. I'VE STRUGGLED WITH STRONGER FROM IT'S CONCEPTION. REMEMBER LAST SUMMER WHEN I CANCELED SOME TV APPEARANCES. IT WAS BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT TO PERFORM STRONGER IN THE DAYTIME. ANYONE WHO CAME TO THE GLOW TOUR CAN UNDERSTAND WHY I WANTED PEOPLE TO SEE IT PROPERLY. IT BROKE MY HEART THAT I COULDN'T GIVE THESE FANS STRONGER IN IT'S GREATEST FORM... BY THE TIME I GOT TO STRONGER IT WAS DAYTIME AND IT BROKE MY HEART. I'M SORRY TO EVERYONE THAT I DIDN'T HAVE THE ABILITY 2 GIVE THE PERFORMANCE I WANTED TO. I'M SORRY... SOMETIMES I GO 2, 3 DAYS W/O SLEEP WORKING ON MY PERFORMANCE... I HAVE TO ICE MY KNEES AFTER EVERY SHOW AND THEY HURT WHEN I WALK THROUGH THE AIRPORT... HAVING AN EXPENSIVE STAGE CUTS MY PAYDAY IN HALF... CALL ME WHAT YOU WANT BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL!!!

In other words: Pearl Jam over-ran, please don't think I was holding back but I was afraid of slipping and looking silly, and fuck it, I think I've got my Mac Air Caps Lock stuck on.

The great Led down?

The NME was quite excited yesterday to have the exclusive first news of headliners for Bonnaroo festival. Pearl Jam and Metallica, they insisted:

The much-rumoured performance by Led Zeppelin is not set to take place. However, frontman Robert Plant is slated to perform with Alison Krauss, as is Lez Zeppelin, the all-female Led Zeppelin tribute band.

That's pretty definitive.

Unfortunately, it seems the organisers sort-of-forgot to mention something to the NME, as the Associated Press have announced:

The reunited Led Zeppelin will headline the 2008 Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival, concert organizers announced Wednesday.

Led Zeppelin, who reconvened for a single December concert in London, had for months been rumored to be heading to Bonnaroo, which will be held Jun 13-15 on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tenn.

Which makes sense - what sort of party is headlined by Pearl Jam?

But should the Zep do it? It does have the effect of sucking the specialness of that supposed one-off "for Ahmet" reunion straight and - with the inevitable tour to follow - leaves them looking just as careless of their legacy as the Sex Pistols. Who, by the way, are booked to headline the Serbian Exit festival this summer. If they can find someone to cover at the estate agents.

[UPDATE: Or has the NME had it right all along? There's some suggestion that the web reports of a Led Zep headline are based on someone in an agency misreading the billing for Lez Zeppelin... certainly, the official site doesn't have any mention of the Zep on the front page.

Indeed, it turns out that when asked at the launch, the organisers denied it:

Ashley Capps, president of Bonnaroo co-organizer A.C. Entertainment denied that the band would make a surprise appearance.

"Believe me, if Zeppelin was going to be there we would be shouting it from the rooftops," he said, adding that no one would be more surprised than him and his team if the band did perform.

]

AT&T snip the 'looza

AT&T made a pretty play for the young-ish, web-hip market earlier this month by webcasting Lollapalooza sets.

Up to a point: it turns out somehow AT&T's webcast mislaid Eddie Vedder's anti-Bush speech during Pearl Jam's set. (And yet they left the music in.)

Funnily enough, this is the same AT&T which happily handed over details of thousands and thousands of its customers private phone calls to the National Security Council, even although none of them were suspected of any crime and there had been no request through the courts for the information. By a strange coincidence.

Venice Festival washed out

The Venice Festival clambered into a small dinghy and floated off this weekend when heavy rain forced a cancellation. On the other hand, since the bill was Pearl Jam, Iron Maiden and the Smashing Pumpkins, you could argue that it was for the best, really.