Festival Heaven, TV Hell

One thing that cushioned the blow of missing out on Blur's epoch-making Glastonbury appearance was that it was covered so splendidly on the telly.

 

 

Without having to endure mud, tents and other people, we got to see most of the gig, only interrupted – for contractual reasons – by an acoustic performance from Paloma Faith (poor girl, barely starting her music career and already resented by thousands).

 

There is, however, one thing that always mars a festival spent on the sofa and that's the inevitable downpour of dreadfulness that's unleashed each time cameras cut back to the presenters. For some reason known only to the mysterious executives who run television, all festival TV coverage must have a chimps' tea party of Radio 1 DJs to link the live footage.

 

As soon as a band has done 'the hit' we're whisked back to some moodily lit treehouse/garden/bunker for Jo Whiley's reaction to what we've just seen.

Let's be clear, Jo Whiley is a lovely woman but she has never and will never say anything of interest or insight about popular music.

 

What she will do is suck all the joy out of any special festival moment with a comment of such pointless inanity she makes Gloria Hunniford sound like Proust.

 

We're not the only ones feeling aggrieved, either. During the Glastonbury coverage, "F*** off Jo Whiley" was a Twitter trending topic. Harsh but fair.

 

Talking about festivals is as boring as talking about your dreams. No matter how wonderful a time you've had, you're not going to be able to communicate it in a few unscripted words to camera, particularly if you're Reggie Yates.

 

A man who was out of his depth introducing Steps on TOTP is six feet under impacted mud when it comes to finding anything to say about Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at T in the Park. It'd be less embarrassing if our Dad did it – at least he wouldn't pretend to be cool.

 

But it's not really the fault of the rent-a-link gang. Because what is there to say? One festival is very much like another. Elbow will undoubtedly play a "blinding" set once again. No one knows how to make the bits between bands interesting – it's a difficult job, given the repetitive nature of the event.

 

And what sane, unmedicated person could possibly show enthusiasm for Lily Allen's cover of Womanizer? Oh, Nick Grimshaw could. Or he could half-heartedly fake it. Which is, of course, what he does.

 

The other inevitable feature of any festival TV coverage is where they cut to a filmed package featuring a part-time stand-up comedian you've never heard of, out and about meeting the fans.

Here's a thought, how about we don't meet the fans? Because the fans, like most people, don't have anything much to say and will simply resort to repeating what they've heard other festival goers say every year: "Bring your own toilet roll!" And wake us when they've done with the traditional montage of idiots in fancy dress.

Call us killjoys if you like, but by dressing up you give every lazy festival TV director the excuse to use endless shots of drunk Smurfs, Borats and Spidermen, when we could be looking at Alex James' sweaty smoking face.

 

Luckily there were plenty of close-ups of said ageless visage at this year's Glastonbury because of the large quantity of stupid flags obscuring the obligatory crane shot. The crane shot is the single worst thing to ever happen in music television.

 

Swooping over the crowd's heads from the back may look really dramatic for a battle scene in a movie but it doesn't work when trying to watch four people on a stage. If we wanted to see what it was like from the back we'd buy a ticket and turn up late.

 

And have you noticed the lack of hang gliders at rock festivals? It's because no one has ever wanted to see what Brandon Flowers looks like when approaching at 60 miles an hour, getting only the merest glimpse of his now 'tache-less face before hurtling off into the sky. Enough with the crane shots!

But festival directors believe such visual aerobatics make for 'good TV'. Barely a minute of a song can go by without them zooming in on a pretty girl atop her boyfriend's shoulders, in the hope she might bare her boobs, regardless of the fact that sitting on someone's shoulders is one of the most inconsiderate things you can do at a festival, up there with talking during the quiet songs and throwing bottles of your own urine.

 

Projecting 'a good time' is what TV coverage of festivals is all about and it's what makes it so frequently loathsome. It shares the same forced jollity as breakfast DJs, clowns and Christmas.

 

They're not content with just letting the festival happen and letting you make up your own mind whether it seems like a good time or not. Everything is "great". Everyone is having a "great time". "Now here's Zane Lowe to pretend to be excited about a band he doesn't like…" Great.

 

Whenever the coverage switches back to a presenter it feels like someone switched the telly to gibber-mode.

 

Just as the London Underground will refund your Oyster if the train is delayed, so should we demand a partial rebate on our license fee for every minute of our life wasted by Jo Whiley saying something well-meaning but witless, when we could be watching footage of Doves playing 'the good one'.

 

We just don't need the commentary. We don't need help to watch some music being performed. All we need to see are the things we would've seen were we at the festival. And unless we're the singer from Editors, that is NOT Edith Bowman's wellingtons dangling off a haystack.

 

Dear television, save yourselves thousands of pounds and the nation from years of anger management classes: just give us the music and spare us the chatter.