E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt has criticised Hard Rock Calling’s decision to cut Bruce Springsteen’s headline performance prematurely last Saturday night (July 14th).
After another typically mammoth set from The Boss was running into its third hour, the authorities pulled the plug at around 10.40pm, just as Springsteen and special guest Sir Paul McCartney – who had been invited onstage for renditions of ‘I Saw Her Standing There‘ and ‘Twist and Shout‘ – were about to offer their thanks to the festival crowd.
And Van Zandt has now taken to Twitter to voice his displeasure at the decision, writing: “One of the great gigs ever in my opinion. But seriously, when did England become a police state? Is there just too much fun in the world? We would have been off by 11 if we’d done one more. On a Saturday night! Who were we disturbing?”
“We break curfews in every country but only English cops need to ‘punish us’ by not letting us leave until the entire crowd goes,” he later added.
Concerts in Hyde Park remain a thorny subject after local groups complained about what they perceived as excessive noise and disruption during the summer season when the London venue regularly hosts a series of festival and big-name headline concerts.
An agreement was reached earlier this year which allowed gigs to continue in Hyde Park, albeit with a reduced capacity and volume, as well as threats of more serious sanctions should the new proposals be breached.
They were disturbing hundreds of residents, of all income levels (not just the wealthy live around Hyde Park). Hours of distorted, resonating, booming and wailing, hours of some people’s homes swaying and vibrating. Children unable to sleep. Followed by police helicopters low overhead monitoring the hyped-up fans & their antisocial behaviour. And we get weeks of it through the summer.