[Vivienne]

First of all, thank you to R1 for the great entertainment over the Big Weekend!! Now.... wait for it...

According to yesterday's Daily Record, it seems The Fratellis are less than happy with the preferential treatment given to Madonna at R1's Big Weekend.

Apparently, organisers of the Big Weekend were told to treat her "like the British Queen x 20". She got 2 trailers and entry for loads of people.

Jon Fratelli has said, "Our crew dedicate every last ounce of enthusiasm into making sure that we have a show that we'll never forget. Yet, every step of the way someone, sometimes seemingly for the fun of it, made life more difficult than it needed to be.

If that's not enough, at the end of the night when all you want to do is walk 20 yards to a bus, some witless wonder tells you that no-one can go anywhere until 1 particular person out of 15,000 licence fee payers has left the site".

I thoroughly enjoyed the broadcasting of the Big Weekend, in particular Usher!!

But, was Madonna worth it? Like Chris Moyles, I agree: there are 2 sides. It's been a major coup for R1 to get her there, and I'm sure visually, it was stunning (check her out at 10:35 p.m. tonight on BBC1).

From a listener point of view, however, I was left disappointed at the lack of classics being sung. Most of her performance was made up of songs from her new album, which effectively turned the perfomance into an "album promotion fest".

I'd like to know what others think...

[Ballbag]

Big weekends generally do my tits in.

They harp on about it for weeks and weeks before it happens... it then happens, and they carry going on about it afterwards.

The event itself is usually pants. The fact that they're forced to give a high percentage of tickets to local people means it doesn't attract a crowd of real music lovers. It's usually full of non-t-shirt wearing, booze drinking, cap wearing chavs with pushchairs and scary dogs. It doesn't lend itself to being a "music fan's" festival.

Oh, and Madonna was crap.

[Yudster]

I think the idea of the Big Weekend is brilliant, and it's great that Radio1 does it. However from the point of view of a non-attending radio listener, we get all the hype, all the build up and on the weekend itself, just when you've lulled yurself into thinking "ooh, live music all this weekend" you get DJ's broadcasting their normal shows with the normal records and the only element of the Big Weekend broadcast is that the DJs are not in a studio! If you're lucky, you might catch the odd recorded highlight in the following week or so.

Why can't they broadcast the Big Weekend to the radio listeners, as it happens? Then it really would be a free music festival for Radio 1 listeners, and would be worth the massive build up it's given.

[Vivienne]

That's a really, really good point!

sorry about above... I'm having all manner of problems with my PC this morning!! [Duplicate posts removed - You can delete/edit posts yourself in the General section.]

[Vivienne]

Thank you.. I have the delete button showing now, but it wasn't earlier.

[Console]

You can only delete a post if it's both written by you and it's the last in the thread. So once you posted your apology, you lost the option to delete a previous post until you also removed that post.

[Vivienne]

I see. Thank you. I'm going away now.

[Ballbag]

The figures are here Lottie.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/bigweekend/ ... ckets/faq/

[Ballbag]

I do try.

[C-Kay]

I agree with him, he even said in the live lounge he expected there to be a total lockdown when she was on.

I'm no fan of Madonna, i will admit right now, i think she's overhyped by the media, and especially by radio 1 during this build up to the weekend. Sure, she's made some classics, but her last few albums have been her jumping on whatever bandwagon's biggest at the time, her last one being a more dance/housey type affair, and with this new one, using Timbaland, when everyone else has used him and had success. I think she's run out of ideas, and knows it, and when everyone kisses her arse (Radio/TV/Magazines), it doesn't help. She does nothing original anymore, the sooner people realise that she's no queeen, she's just a singer/songwriter/normal human being, the better. She may * off and grow old somewhere quietly then.

The fact she mimed bugs me as well, yes it's about the show (so we are told) as well, but it is with the bands too. They play intsruments, sing live AND put on a show, why cant she? Everyone keeps saying it's about the visuals with her, so where does that leave everyone that didn't get tickets? They get to hear her miming through a speaker. great.

It's a joke.

But then, they cant please everyone, this is of course my opinion, and i guess thousands would disagree with me.

In regards to Yudster's comment about broadcasting it live, i guess they cant incase of swearing (The Fratelli's used the word '*' in 'Henrietta', for example. (They couldn't afford to pay the fines after paying for Madonna ), so maybe that's why.

[SAV1OUR]

Everyone keeps saying it's about the visuals with her, so where does that leave everyone that didn't get tickets? They get to hear her miming through a speaker. great.

It's a joke.

I think its worth also mentioning the online content - I agree with Moyles totally about how great the 'iPlayer' has been for this festival, I was able to watch stuff I wanted - the whole set, instead of scouring YouTube for snippets. I agree with everything you say about Madonna and as mentioned elsewhere although shes musically outdated, out-thought and ridiculously overhyped - she puts on a hell of a show and I think every festival needs a bit of 'wow factor' to reel in the casual listener/viewer. In this case its the Radio1 'brand' and everything they're trying to do there.

As a whole they struck a good balance between the marketing side (Madonna) and the new exciting music (Pendulum).

[element231]

Love the weekends, and the clips after

"welcome to Maidstone in Kent, The best place in er..... Kent .?"

[C-Kay]

Everyone keeps saying it's about the visuals with her, so where does that leave everyone that didn't get tickets? They get to hear her miming through a speaker. great.

It's a joke.

I think its worth also mentioning the online content - I agree with Moyles totally about how great the 'iPlayer' has been for this festival, I was able to watch stuff I wanted - the whole set, instead of scouring YouTube for snippets. I agree with everything you say about Madonna and as mentioned elsewhere although shes musically outdated, out-thought and ridiculously overhyped - she puts on a hell of a show and I think every festival needs a bit of 'wow factor' to reel in the casual listener/viewer. In this case its the Radio1 'brand' and everything they're trying to do there.

As a whole they struck a good balance between the marketing side (Madonna) and the new exciting music (Pendulum).

Yeah, i will hold my hands up to that, the online content is brilliant, it's the best i've seen of any festival, ever, in fact. I praise Radio1 for that, but i could argue that not everyone has the internet. Don't get me wrong, i'm in no way slagging off the festival itself, i have enjoyed EVERY bit of what i have seen. I just think that the whole Madonna thing is a bit of a farce. Maybe if i had seen it live it may have had more of an impact on me, but i've watched it online, and i got bored and it did nothing for me. Not liking her music probably didn't help though.

[Vivienne]

I didn't like the fact she mimed a bit either, C-Kay. I had my suspicions about it on Sat. eve., and it was confirmed by Moyles yesterday.

[Yudster]

Was she totally miming, or singing live but with a recorded vocal track? Thats's what she usually does - she's certainly not the only performer to do it either. Kylie does, Girls Aloud do it - probably loads of others.

There's a lot of "singers" out there who are fine in a recording studio but not vocally strong enough to fill a stadium or an arena (or any decent sized venue really) with their voice - they need help. Madonna isn't a good enough singer to manage her vocals fully live, she's always known that - she has in the past excused her use of a vocal track by saying that the physical demands of her show mean she needs it when she's dancing, and there's probably something in that. But even if she stood still in the middle of the stage and just sang, she'd still need it, so for the sake of the spectacular show she puts on, I don't blame her at all really.

Not my idea of a singer though.

[C-Kay]

Which is what bugs me so much, if she's not that good a singer, why the royalty like status?

Usher managed to sing 100% live, and put on a hell of a show, dancing away, good crowd interaction etc.

I just find everything that surrounds her a complete farce.

[Vivienne]

The royalty-like status will be in deference to the fact she has been around for soooo long now.

Usher was fantastico. I was out for a run at the time, and he sounded great blasting into my ears!

[rich2006]

It could be worse!. The BBC could of flown Jo Whiley out 2 weeks before she got to the UK to interview her in New York!...........

[Yudster]

That really pissed me off. Madonna lives in London. She was performing in Maidstone. So why did the publicly funded BBC feel it necessary to fly Jo Whiley (or anyone else for that matter) to New York to talk to her? Why couldn't they have done the interview while Madonna was at home in the UK? I have never felt the need to moan about how "my" licence fee money is spent, but this comes as close as anything has.

[Vivienne]

This was another thing which came up in local newspapers. Someone wrote a letter into the "Readers' Page" stating that both women (Jo & Madonna) would be in Kent at the same time, so why on Earth did Jo need to cross the Atlantic.

[S4B]

Isn't that what Yuds said?

[Boboff]

Yes it is.

[S4B]

Thought so. Thanks Boboff for your informed agreement with my post.