Caution : hastily penned and un-spell checked rant ahead.

Once in a while, I quite like a stadium gig. I know many of you will argue that we're better off going to see a friend's band at the local Spork & Hedgehog for thruppence over a pint of Old Stoat, but let's imagine for a minute that you and yours quite fancy an evening out with 50,000 others.

I bought a Madonna ticket today for the first time in quite a few years. The experience made me cross.

For a long time 'the kids' thought of the record companies as the enemy - dropping our favourite artists, bilking us through our teenage years with singles on multiple strange formats and albums being re-released with extras. But they are mere amateurs compared to the new breed of concert promoters.

On the face of it, it appears that LiveNation and their ilk are here to save our favourite artists, freeing the likes of Madonna from the tyrany of huge cheques from major labels, but the reality is that they've seen the writing on the wall for pre-recorded music and decided to take advantage of the only thing you can't download - the feeling of being at a live show.

Take her Wembley Stadium show. At first glance, tickets go up to an already eye watering £160 (plus fees). Or do they? In reality, tickets actually go up to £468.83 for a seat with hospitality - for which I believe I could conceivably fly to New York and attend the Madison Square Garden show (albeit with the cheapest ticket). The message is clear. You want a good seat? Buy a bundle. The reality appears to be that that the 'best' tickets aren't in the pool any more. You or I are never going to click the magic button on Ticketmaster and find ourselves sat by the stage for one of these events, no matter how early you arrive or what pre-sale privileges you have. Because they're not there any more. They're in a bundle.

Even if you choose to stand, they've got you stitched up three ways. Of course there's the now ubiquitous golden circle (and it's not specified how big that is) for which you pay an extra ten pounds. But your dedication to the noble art of the gig queue will matter not in the least, because they will also gladly sell you a package (at £150 premium over the cost of the gold circle ticket including fees) to let you into the golden circle before all those other poor saps who dared not to pay extra.

Not only that, they've chosen to form an unholy alliance with organisations that provide the acceptable face of touting.

When I did a search earlier for a ticket type that came up empty, it simply redirected me to one of their 'secondary market' partners who seemed plentifully stocked. Interesting how that can be for a show that hasn't even gone on public sale yet and fan club members are limited to just 4 tickets...

There seems to be a misguided impression that promoters are the innocent victims of touts. The truth is the opposite. They could do a lot to stop the problem - from putting names or photographs on tickets, to the simple act of allowing box office returns or forcing box office collection for heavily touted shows, eliminating the armchair tout in Glasgow who is touting for a gig in London. Instead, they choose to use touting as a way to legitimise their own second and third bites of the cherry - throw their hands up in the air, decry touting, and then get on with the business of benefitting from it.

It's all very easy for promoters to look at well established artists, wave a cheque under their nose, steal them away from the majors, milk their fans and cream off a fat profit, all the while not giving a shit how well or poorly the record sells - that's not their problem as long as the venue's full.

My hope is that this cream-off-the-top attitude will come home to roost if they don't invest in talent on the ground floor. Maybe they do, I don't know. Just how much are they interested in the minor leagues? If this kind of contract destroys what's left of the majors, where do they think the huge artists they give these deals to will come from in the future?

Is it finally time for legislation? I've argued against it before, given that the solutions are there for this to be done by organisers (Glastonbury, anyone? Largest music event in the national calendar and close to non-existent touting?) - there's evidently a way, but I see no will.

The secondary market is bleeding into the primary market and the general public are being taken for suckers. The live music industry has proved time and again that they can't be trusted.

For god's sake don't buy these bundles. Those tickets then end up back in the public pool by default (I firmly believe this is what happened with my Genesis and Police tickets - amazing tickets near the front suddenly appearing a few days before the show, coinciding with bundles going off sale) and the person at the front is the lunatic who's been sleeping rough outside the venue for the last month. He's earned it.

I noted a few months ago to someone that the history of early twenty first century music will likely be documented for the most part in shaky video taken on mobile phone / digital cameras.

This theory seems to be borne out by today's experience. I went to upload footage of a new Gemma Hayes song (Oliver) to YouTube, only to find that two other people had already done so - from the same show. Now, keeping in mind that this was a show that had a capacity of 300 and wasn't full - let's say 200, and I know that my friend also filmed it given that he posted it on his blog, can we assume that 2% of the audience at a gig are filming any given song?

Below is the set list for the new Kylie tour, X - and at first glance it appears almost wilfully perverse for a major pop artist.

Less than half of the songs are singles, and it includes tracks rejected from the album. Most of her biggest hits are missing but room is found for a Barry Manilow cover. So is this genius or madness? Have you come out of a gig shaking your head, wondering what the band were thinking?

Does anyone look at this set list and nod sagely, saying "I can see exactly what they were thinking..." or do you look at it and say "This is going to cause a vast amount of displeasure to the one-gig-a-year brigade who normally attend this kind of big pop show."

On the one hand, playing a large chunk of unreleased material along with an equally large dollop of the new album at the expense of 'the hits' is a brave move for any artist, it's surely at huge risk of alienating a substantial section of the audience, spoiled by the all-the-hits-all-the-time nature of last year's Showgirl Homecoming.

Expect cries of "Do some old!" from the cheap seats...

Act 1: Xlectro Static
Speakerphone
Can't Get You Out Of My Head (Greg Kurstin Remix) (with excerpts of "Boombox", an unreleased song from Body Language)
Ruffle My Feathers (an unreleased song from X)
In Your Eyes

Act 2: Cheer Squad
Heart Beat Rock
Wow
Shocked (DNA Mix) (with excerpts of "Lose Control", an unreleased song from X)

Act 3: Xposed
Like A Drug
Slow (with excerpts of "Free" from Impossible Princess)
The One
2 Hearts

Act 4: Black versus White
On A Night Like This
Kids
Step Back In Time
In My Arms
Love at First Sight

Act 5: Naughty Manga Girl
Sometime Samurai (Video Projection)
Come Into My World (Fischerspooner Mix)
Nu-di-ty
Sensitized

Act 6: Starry Nights
Flower (an unreleased song from X)
I Believe in You (Ballad Version)
Cosmic

Act 7: Beach Party
Loveboat (from Light Years)
Copacabana (a cover of Barry Manilow's hit)
That's Why They Write Love Songs (an unreleased song written by Steve Anderson)
Spinning Around

Encore
No More Rain
All I See (Acoustic Version)

So here, according to Q is the line up for the main stages. Is this programming a work of genius or madness? Where else will you get to see Gilbert O'Sullivan on the same stage as Goldfrapp, or Shakin' Stevens with Jay-Z?

Pyramid Stage

Friday

Kings Of Leon
The Fratellis
Editors
The Gossip
The Feeling
KT Tunstall
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
The Subways
Kate Nash

Saturday

Jay Z
TBC
Manu Chao
The Raccounters
James Blunt
Crowded House
Seasick Steve
The Hold Steady
Shakin’ Stevens

Sunday

The Verve
Leonard Cohen
Goldfrapp
TBC
John Mayer
Gilbert O'Sullivan

Other Stage

Friday

Panic At The Disco
The Enemy
We Are Scientists
Foals
The Hoosiers
Ben Folds
Joe Lean & Jing Jang Jong
Vampire Weekend
Hilltop Hoods

Saturday

Massive Attack
Hot Chip
Elbow
Duffy
The Wombats
Neon Neon
Black Kids
The Golden Silvers
The Travelling Band

Sunday

Groove Armada
The Zutons
The Pigeon Detectives
Mark Ronson
Scouting For Girls
Jack Penate
Newton Faulkner
Black Mountain
Hoodoo Gurus

John Peel Stage

Friday

Jamie T
The Cribs
Reverend & The Makers
MGMT
The Ting Tings
Young Knives
Lightspeed Champion
Glasvegas

Saturday

Biffly Clyro
The Futureheads
Band Of Horses
The Courteeners / Black Keys
Vampire Weekend
The Teenagers

Sunday

The National
Spiritualized
Crystal Castles
Brian Jones Town Massacre
The Stars
The Courteeners / Black Keys
Rocket Summer

The Queen's Head [Q Stage]

Santogold, Noah And The Whale, The Holloways, Duke Spirit, Stepen Fretwell, Mr David Viner, One Night Only, Soulsavers, Annie Mac, The Modern Skirts, Teddy Thompson, Ron Sexsmith, thecocknbullkid, The Congregation, Dengue Fever

While in a queue the other day waiting to see the Long Blondes, I ended up talking to a group of teenagers who turned out to be heavily into the likes of Suede, Pulp etc... and seemed genuinely awestruck at the idea that I'd seen them live. To them, Britpop seems as long ago as the 60s do for me (I was born in 1980) - while they were genuinely interested, it did have the impact of making me feel very old.

The shoe was on the other foot a few days later when I was talking to an older friend at a James gig who revealed that he first saw them in 1983 at the Hacienda - I was immediately full of questions about what the scene was like at the time.

I'm not sure I have a particular question to go with this, other than when were you last made to feel very old - musically speaking? And what is it about music that inspires an interest in the past?

While I can't boast of one myself, having somehow managed to avoid trenchfoot at Glastonbury, I was reminded last night that the last time I saw the Long Blondes, the crush at the front left my girlfriend with bruised ribs and a couple of days off work in pain.

I figure that among the Word readership there's probably a long and chequered history of injury in pursuit of rock. So how about you?

Just a heads up to any Half Man Half Biscuit fans that they've finally got another album coming out, including such tracks as

Evening Of Swing (Has Been Cancelled)
Took Problem Chimp To Ideal Home Show
Give Us Bubblewrap

Now to hope the songs live up to their titles...

I believe it is - it starts off quite dry but descends into a scathing attack on both lawyers, including the suggestion that "Plaintiff's counsel not to run with a sharpened writing utensil in hand — he could put his eye out."

http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document073001.shtml

Cheered me up on a Friday afternoon anyway.

Print it out, take it to a gig. Shout "Bingo!" if you complete a run. Let me know what I've missed...

general
musician asks how crowd is doing
musician thanks audience for coming
musician asks audiences to name song, album or band
musician tosses guitar picks or drumsticks into crowd
musician toasts (with) audience
musician tells audience to put their hands up/together/in the air
mid-set stools out acoustic bit
musician apologises to Europe for George Bush

plugs
musician plugs merchandise
musician plugs mailing list
musician plugs web site
musician plugs myspace

geography
musician mentions name of city
musician mentions name of city, but gets it wrong
musician mispronounces name of city
musician uses wrong nickname for city ("frisco")
musician asks if anyone is from _other city_
musician says city is better than _other city_
musician inserts name of city in song
musician talks about previous visit to city
and asks if anyone was there last time...
details their day in _your city here_ and the crazy things they saw

the bar
musician mentions name of bar
musician mentions name of bar, but gets it wrong
musician thanks sound guy
musician thanks lighting guy
musician thanks bartender

other bands
musician says "I was here for the sound check and it sounded good"
headliner mentions opener
opener mentions headliner
...repeatedly (this can be used as a measure of how badly the set is going - more mentions = worse)
musician mispronouces other performer’s name

the band
band members have first names only
musician forgets name of band member
musician is too important to introduce the band at all