I'm not normally someone who joins forums and posts stuff and doubtless I will get criticism for this, but I feel like I want to give vent to my feelings - who knows, maybe Richard will see this and take it as it's meant.
I've followed Richard's music career from pretty early on, bought the cd's etc. and have seen him loads of times and have always had a brilliant time. My wife and I travelled close to 200 miles for the Ramsbottom Festival and were really looking forward to seeing Richard again. It was a bloody cold day, but we saw some great bands and were having a lovely day. But I have to say we felt really disappointed and angry by Richard's performance. Yeah, it was bloody cold, yeah there were a few gobby idiots in the crowd (it's a festival, it happens, ignore them and move on) but that's no excuse for Richard's attitude. Slagging off Ramsbottom, slagging off his wife, telling people to shut up, going on about being off his fucking head when out with his son etc. - I don't know if it was an attempt to be sardonic or what, but it came across as mealy mouthed, misogynistic and a bit pathetic. As I say, I know it was cold (believe me it was colder off stage, standing around for 8 or 9 hours in it) and the on-stage sound was obviously bad (turn the fucking keyboards down, turn them up, turn the drums down, turn 'em up, Julian! It's fucking crap! Juuuuulian!!! - Julian ain't gonna do a good job if he gets bellowed at, he was probably a nervous wreck) but show a bit of professionalism, deal with it after the show, the sound for us out front was fine, unusually good for a festival oddly enough. And then in amongst the ranting, he was constantly telling us he loves us, appreciates us etc. - sort your head out mate! He goes on about working class values, but we'd paid good hard earned money to see him perform, not behave like a spoilt kid, storming around the stage and then stomping off and not playing an encore (yeah, I know encores are a 'game' we all sign up to, but they usually happen). I don't know if drink or herbal cigarettes played a part, but it's no excuse.
Anyway, rant over - I still love the music, will still go to his gigs and still think he's a good bloke, but needed to say this. Hope he's working class enough and man enough to own it.
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