Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Not holding his light under Garry Bushell



So we usually pass comment on Glastonbury's TV coverage - the above is from just this weekend - and this year was most notable for a very curious Friday night show which involved Mark Radcliffe not entirely playing ball with the spirit of, well, anything, apart perhaps from spirits, and Lauren Laverne. Now, we'll always love Laverne for fairly obvious reasons if you know us, but, you see, she used to go on television to do sort of thing. Now, while she's still capable of the odd flight of fancy, she seems to spend most of her working life in an advanced state of excitement as if possessed by the spirit (third use of that work in different contexts) of Zoe Ball, even when it sends her judgement awry. Declaring Amy Winehouse's famously scatted and/or slurred and slugging performance "a tour de force" and her musical highlight of the whole three days is one thing. Talking about Kate Nash opening the Friday Pyramid stage as an example of how an artist can have a sudden rise to prominence which belies their place on the bill is another - was Nash really booked before last August, then? And we know plenty of people still picking their dentures up from the floor after her introducing The National as an American Editors.

Still, at least Jamie Theakston was run out of Pilton town years ago.

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