Three days ago Neil Lonsdale started a petition to have the Glastonbury Festival replace their Saturday headliner: Kanye West, aka Ye, aka Yeezy, aka The Louis Vuitton Don, aka Konman. Kanye is slotted to join The Foo Fighters and Lionel Richie as the festival’s main events – the rest of the festival’s lineup has not been announced yet.
After a humble 72 hours, Neil’s petition has more than 90,000 signatures. The post specifically asks for Kanye to be removed from the lineup and that the festivals gets “a rock band.” We’d be fine with an EDM headliner. 2014’s featured performances included Arcade Fire, Metallica, and Kasabian, 2013; Arctic Monkeys, The Rolling Stones, and Mumford & Sons. It’s about time that the UK’s flagship event broke into the 21st century. Could we suggest Skrillex, deadmau5 or Knife Party?
In addition to the massive pile of co-signers, a host of well-articulated comments have added to the length of the petition on change.org:
“Kanye West is a c*nt” -Marc (Leyland, UK)
“He is the scum at top of the ladder” -Ben (Sawtry, UK)
“Kanye is a psychopathically narcissistic moron with messianic delusions that have rightfully earned him the passionate hatred of virtually everyone outside of his fanbase.” -Matt (Harpenden, UK)
“He’s a gay fish” -Luke (Doncaster, UK)
“I work at Glastonbury festival and would be utterly ashamed to be associated with such a misogynistic, selfish, racist and arrogant being as Kanye West.” -Eleanor (Kent, UK)
I believe that all music deserves a platform, but if you’re equally as irate as some seem to be, feel free to add your name to the petition: “Cancel Kanye West’s headline slot and get a rock band“. There’s logistically no likelihood that anything actually gets changed. Most headline artists are under contract for the event before they get announced. That’s why we buy single day tickets.
