Glasto Blasto

Glastonbury started the other day, with Jay-Z the headliner and Amy Winehouse the ’star’ attraction.

Having watched a bit of both of their sets on BBCi, i’m struggling to see how people claim that Amy Winehouse performed well. The presenters on the BBC coverage of Glasto seem to all agree how good she was, but all I saw was someone barely able to sing words, or even stand up unaided!

She’s a crack addict and a smackhead, and it shows. Rather than let her come to Glastonbury, the organizers should have done the right thing and decided not to let her perform. She needs help and it shows – badly. According to the beeb, she actually threw a punch at an audience member. Hardly the actions of a sound mind?

Problem is in this country, we like it when celebrities lives start unravelling. Rather than say that she performed really badly, we say how amazing her performance was. All that will do will uphold her belief that her lifestyle is fine, she can continue taking drugs and killing herself because she’s getting told how good her performance was.

She had talent, and there is a unique voice there, but it’s all getting chucked away.

Jay-Z on the other hand, the guy who isn’t a smackhead and isn’t a tabloid staple, was the guy who was getting the stick. Not the drugged up bitch, the rapper who came to Glasto to do something different. Noel Gallagher didn’t help matters by claiming that Glastonbury was more of a rock festival and less about the hip-hop. Jay-Z hit back, claiming that the whole festival is about variety and he should really see his show before commenting.

I’d seen Jay-Z on Jonathon Ross the previous night and was surprised that he made a good guest. I’ve seen Eminem interviewed and he’s nervous and uninteresting, Jay seemed a nice guy. So I watched a bit of his set last night, to find out that he started it with a cover of Wonderwall! An inspired move to hit back at all the doubters. 

Now, I don’t know much about his music, but I know he put on a decent show. The Foo Fighters had the crowd in the palm of their hands at Live Earth last year, and Jay-Z was doing the same. He even covered Estelle’s American Boy and did a decent job of it!

I’m glad he answered his critics in the way he did, but I only wish the media wouldn’t encourage Amy Winehouse – the Independent say “A relatively polished performance”. A relatively bollocks performance would’ve been more apt.