Why Do UK Festivals Suck Balls At Booking Special Guests?

Another week, another miserable morning stewing in your own FOMO as people with cooler jobs than you tell you about the once-in-a-lifetime collaborations they saw during their sun-blanched weekends at American music festivals. First Usher joined Afghan Whigs on stage at SXSW, then Chuckie and Slash swapped samples and solos at Ultra Music Festival, now everyone has come down from their Coachella acid trips to tell you about a whole string of never-again zeitgasam duets. Phoenix and R. Kelly did Ignition. Solange and The XX covered an Aaliyah song and the mainstage screens showed the world exclusive clip from Daft Punk, Pharrell and Nile Rodgers.

What’s more impressive - none of these big festival surprises were spoilt by rumours or leaks. In an age where any fucktard with more than five followers can leak state secrets, these huge acts genuinely managed to surprise.

So why can’t British festivals manage it. Every time we attempt a special guest or a surprise performance, we fuck it up spectacularly. Dizzee Rascal joins Arctic Monkeys on stage at their Glastonbury headline set - his microphone doesn’t work. M.I.A. joins Jay-Z on stage at his Hackney Weekend headline set - her microphone doesn’t work. Beyoncé, the biggest artist in the world, who could basically pay to have Michael Jackson’s corpse reanimated so it could do the single ladies wrist flick if she wanted to, gets Tricky to make some barely audible noises in the back of Baby Boy AND HIS MICROPHONE DOESN’T WORK. America got a Tupac hologram to appear without anyone knowing about it, and it worked without a jitter. We can’t even get a sound guy to push up the right fader.

We actually asked Tricky what happened with that Beyoncé thing and he said this:

"I was shocked to be honest with you, when I got the phone call saying Beyonce wants you to feature. Because I’m banned from Glastonbury, I can’t play there. I’m banned from all Live Nation events. But Beyonce wanted me there so they said I could. Shows she’s got some muscle. To be honest with you I just did it because it was peverse. And you know what, my mic didn’t work. There was smoke and lights and dancers and my mic didn’t work. So then I just started looking out, just watching, going this is craaazy, this is craazy."

So there you go.

We’re terrible at secret sets too. If Pulp or Radiohead are planning a surprise performance it’s trailed on the national news. Green Day’s secret set at Reading last year was so popular they had to move it to 11am and keep thousands of fans out the arena for fear of overcrowding. The only time we ever manage a special guest is when a sweaty Phil Daniels has an concurrent episodes of Tourettes and Hyperhidrosis somewhere in the vicinity of Blur playing Parklife. Surely we can do better than this? This is what we want from this summer’s festivals.

BIFFY CLYRO (READING AND LEEDS)

A HISTORY OF BRITISH SOFT ROCK

No one really understands how a Scottish post-hardcore band, who according to Wikipedia use to be called Kuntozoid Spamcocky, managed to become the new kings of Absolute Radio. But now that it’s happened, Biffy should pay tribute to their adopted music heritage. Imagine this: they launch into their dreadful new single, the one about black chandelier, or maybe it's black Chandler - anyway, they get down to the middle eight and then that wino from Snow Patrol comes in and starts singing Chasing Cars, the song from Comic Relief charity films and people's nan dying on X Factor. He’s barely one line in before that wino from Elbow comes in and starts singing that song about the curtains from the Beijing Olympics. But they’re sort of doing it as a round, a mutually-beneficialsoft-rock circle jerk. Obviously they wanted Keane to finish things off, but Tom Chaplin got a last minute offer to play a float at Notting Hill Carnival, so your man from Embrace comes in and does Nature's Law – which no one really remembers even though it was a number two single a couple of years ago but that’s fine because here’s Emeli Sande, leading the crowd through a rousing version of whatever it is she sings while wearing – here’s the clever bit – a black chandelier. Fireworks. The end.

KINGS OF LEON (V FESTIVAL)

X FACTOR SING-A-LONG

Is anyone excited about seeing KOL at V? They’ve headlined a European festival every year for the past five, even their biggest fans can't be that bothered about it. It’s not like they’re going to have new outfits or lights or anything – just same old leather jackets and swinging lightbulbs. They don't even have any new songs, apart from that weird one where they locked a bunch of African children in a barn and taught them how to make contrived white-man music. But maybe they could perk things up a bit by inviting every little turd who’s auditioned for a TV talent show with a heavily constipated version of Sex On Fire to join them on stage. It’d be awful, but at least a few of them would try to crowdsurf, miss by miles and fall into the security pit.

THE KILLERS (T IN THE PARK)

THE NEW SOUND OF VEGAS

Since the Killers started out, their musical make-up of their hometown has changed beyond recognition. Where once Celine Dion and Barry Manilow were kingpins, the city now belongs to EDM DJs playing huge residencies in bottle-service nightclubs. As luck would have it David Guetta, Chase & Status and Calvin Harris are all going to be at T In The Park. So how about a few pingers-at-dawn live remixes of some of those indie disco classics. Mr. Brightside with a few house pianos. Human with a fuck-off drop every nine seconds. Jenny Was A Friend Of Mind with a pre-recorded verse from Tinie Tempah in which he makes convoluted allusions to sticking his wang in Jenny's mouth. This could really work.

MUMFORD AND SONS (GLASTONBURY)

MASS FOX HUNT

We understand why you’d book Mumford for Glastonbury, not only do they give 40-year-old women that buy all their clothes from the Edinburgh Woolen Mill soggy gussets, but they’re also at one with the countryside spirit of Somerset. So why don’t they take their headline set to its natural conclusion and set a pack of foxes loose from the stage and a set of rabid dogs down from the top of the hill. Not only would it inject a bit of excitement into their lacklustre banjo jams, but it would also decimate the tents of those morons who camp right in front of the pyramid stage and then get pissed off when you walk through their gazebo.

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