"Compelling" was the verdict of Mark Radcliffe and Jo Whiley with regard to The White Stripes Glasto Set last night. I agree with them on the first four letters but my description is that it was "compost". How the fuck 70,000 people in a mud filled field can enjoy this cod zeppabilly gurning is beyond me. Lets face it, most of them are watching it on a giant screen if at all. Two tiny figures an ocean away from them bashing out a hastily scrabbled noise that sounded like a rock opera tantrum. Meg White is no Miriam Linna and Jack, he's all dressed up like Slash and caterwauls like Axl. One of the songs sounds a little like The Groupies "Primitive" and another hobbles dangerously close to Bad Company's "Feel Like Makin' Love". I've never seen the point to them but this and all the recent fawning for their "Get Thee Behind Me Satan" or whatever it's called has confirmed to me that today's masses will eat up yum whatever they're fed. Can anyone explain what the story is? Why they're supposed to be so cool? From where I was sitting it didn't look cool and it sounded like chopped liver. Or at least what I expect that commodity to sound if it did indeed make such a thing. Glastonbury has become something that seems like an exercise in survival. The punter pays a hefty wad to rough it to a soundtrack by the stinkiest acts on the planet. My contribution is paid through my TV licence fee so at least I have the option of changing the channel but I don't. There must be something wrong with me. I'll watch Live 8 too and it's guaranteed that I won't like it. Consider it my strain of suffering for my art.
Update at 3.58pm... I just saw Jack and Meg hang, draw, quarter, stick a banger up it's arse and light the fuse number on Dusty's "I Don't Know What To Do With Myself". OK, so I know they have good taste but that taste doesn't translate - por moi - into anything other than a shriek like Russell Mael with a clamp on his nadgers. Absolutely bastarding woeful. I second my original emulsion.
