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Promoter Cool Over Oasis Split
The French promoter faced with paying a refund to each of the 30,000-plus music fans who turned up in Paris to see
Salomon Hazot of Nous Productions, who has run the city’s Rock En Seine Festival for seven years, told Pollstar he believes he can work out an amicable solution with the act’s management.
“I think I am dealing with someone who is very straightforward and professional,” he said, four days after the Manchester band pulled out of its headline slot only minutes before it was due onstage.
“What is the point in paying lawyers, who already get so much for doing so little, and then everybody except them loses in the end? If we get money, then we wait one, two or even three years before it comes.”
Hazot was eating dinner in the festival’s catering area when he got the news that the act wouldn’t be playing. At first he thought it was a joke.
“What can I say about it now? I think the two brothers are still like 6-year-olds fighting over a toy,” he explained.
International news reports suggest there was a dressing room bust-up in which lead singer Liam Gallagher broke his songwriter brother Noel’s guitar.
The latter quit the band immediately and has since posted a note on the band’s Web site claiming his departure was due to “lack of support and understanding from my management and bandmates.”
He also apologised to those who bought tickets to see the band in Paris and who bought tickets for the previous week’s show at the U.K.’s V Festival in Chelmsford, although that date was pulled due to Liam Gallagher suffering from viral laryngitis.
The two brothers’ stormy relationship has been well documented since their first public bust-up, when Liam hit Noel over the head with a tambourine on stage in Los Angeles in 1994 during their first U.S. tour. Not for the last time, Noel threatened to call it a day.
This time his online comments about his brother suggest the Paris row may have finally put a finish to the band.
At press time it wasn’t possible to get comment from the band’s manager, Marcus Russell of Ignition Management, on what the act is prepared to do to facilitate the amicable solution with Hazot.
It’s the second year in succession that the French promoter has paid out refunds because a headline act didn’t play.
In 2008, when Amy Winehouse failed to make it to Paris, those who paid euro 70 for a two-day ticket or euro 42 to see her headline the second day got a euro 18 discount for this year’s festival.
The acts who turned up and also played at Rock En Seine Aug. 28-30 included Faith No More, The Prodigy, MGMT, Amy Macdonald, Macy Gray, Vampire Weekend, Madness and Bloc Party.