The Darkness: Glasto Can't Afford Us!

United Kingdom | | 13 March 2004

Last year, the band leapt (or star-jumped) at the chance to perform at 10.30am, for peanuts, at Glastonbury. Three Brit awards and 1.2 million album sales later, they won't come back for less than a million, says Michael Eavis!

Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis told today's Daily Mirror, "It's incredible how much things change in a year... When we booked them last summer, they were just a pub band that no one had heard of. We paid them £75 but they were thrilled to be given the opportunity."

Indeed, for the few thousand festival-goers who got up early enough to catch them opening the festival on the Pyramid Stage at 10.30 am, the band proved to be one of the weekend's highlights. Their finale, an exhuberant cover of headliner Radiohead's Street Spirit, will forever be remembered as a 'Glastonbury Moment'.

A source close to the band revealed that to play the festival this year, they would want £1 million, on the grounds that "they've worked long and hard to get where they are and feel entitled to make the most of their success."

A spokesman for the festival said that it's unlikely the band will be asked back, and that they would certainly not be paying those kinds of fees to anyone.

It is, however, very likely that Paul McCartney, Kings of Leon, Basement Jaxx and the Scissor Sisters will be appearing at Glastonbury 2004 (June 25-27).

If you're desperate to see The Darkess, you can catch them at Scotland's T in the Park (July 10), Ireland's Oxegen (July 11) and Belgium's Rock Werchter Festival (July 3). They are also strongly rumoured to headline England's Reading and Leeds Festivals (August 27-29).