Tom Jones Settles Pori Issues

It was never revealed if Pori Jazz Festival went through with its threat to ask Live Nation to stump up at least some of the euro 1 million the Finnish event reckons it lost when it failed to get Tom Jones as a headliner in 2009, but the matter appears to have been amicably resolved.

The fact the Welsh singer is on this year’s Pori bill, along with Elton John, at least suggests the two sides are no longer at loggerheads.

The Finnish festival’s organisers claimed that at ILMC 2009 they were given the thumbs-up to announce the Welsh star would be playing that summer’s event, but LN – which was organising Jones’ European dates – denied the gig was ever confirmed.

Former Pori Jazz booker Jyrki Kangas, who was consulting for the festival’s new booking team at the time, was adamant that it was.

“I regret that I have to be the middle person to deliver to you the message that Tom Jones’ agreed performance can’t take place,” said the LN e-mail to Pori.

The news of came one day before Pori was to go on sale, and the festival had already printed 500,000 brochures with the Welsh singer’s name on them.

Kangas confirmed this year’s booking is also through Live Nation and told Pollstar it will be interesting to see what Finnish ticket buyers will make of the situation.

Jones returned to Finland in the autumn of 2009 but Kangas claims he only sold about a third of the tickets in Helsinki’s 9,000-capacity Hartwall Arena.

This year’s Pori Jazz (July 9-17) was to go on sale April 1.

The other acts on the bill include Mos Def, Robert Glasper Experiment, Aloe Blacc, Charles Lloyd New Quartet and Black Dub featuring Daniel Lanois, Brian Blade and Trixie Whitley.