Paul Weller says fans have ruined Glastonbury
Tuesday, 22 Apr 2008 17:25
Paul Weller claims attendees of Glastonbury are no longer "big music fans"
Paul Weller has claimed slow ticket sales for this year's Glastonbury Festival are due to the event's target market changing.
The former Jam star believes that as the Somerset festival has evolved, a different type of clientele has attended the event, with much of the crowd made up of fair-weather music fans.
And according to the mod icon, who played at the festival in 1994 and 2007, Glastonbury is no longer the highlight of the music calendar it was in the 90s.
"The difference between doing it in '94 and doing it last year was that most of the audience knew the greatest hits, whereas in '94 they were music fans," he told BBC 6Music.
"You didn't just have to do the greatest hits, that was very noticeable to me."
While previous events have sold out within hours of going on sale, tickets still remain for this year's festival, with Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher claiming the relatively slow sales are due to the awarding of the Friday night headline slot to rap star Jay-Z.
Festival organiser Michael Eavis has attributed the slower sales to the fact that tickets for the Reading and V festivals went on sale before those for Glastonbury 2008, and also blamed poor weather in recent years.
And Weller agreed with the latter point, saying: "The conditions are disgusting aren't they?
"I don't know how people can... I mean, you'd have to be off your box to stay there for three days wouldn't you?" he asked.
Having just signed to co-headline a festival in the Isle of Wight alongside Girls Aloud, Weller added: "I'm not a big lover of festivals at the best of times, I like proper gigs… and it's just really corporate now isn't it?"