Alongside the announcement of the first Glastonbury line-up poster this morning, organiser Emily Eavis revealed The John Peel Stage will be renamed ahead of this summer’s festival.
It’s part of a push to name stages after the fields they’re in, as is already the case with the West Holts and Silver Hayes stages – which could make it slightly easier for first-timers to navigate the enormous festival.
Emily Eavis told the Guardian the renaming has nothing to do with a petition which called for the stage to be renamed following a series of allegations about the former BBC Radio 1 presenter. She said: “I haven’t got involved in that because it’s not our area. We’ve had 20 years of John Peel and it’s been an honour to use his name. We’ve had a really good relationship with the Peel family and everyone’s on board.”
Despite this, the petition’s creator Jack Owens today posted a short update, saying: “We won. Thank you.”
Today’s Guardian article calls the petition “minor” and describes its basis as “owing to Peel having married a 15-year-old girl when he was 25 (then legal in Texas, where they were wed).” The article fails to mention many other claims contained in the petition and previously reported in the media. These include a woman who said in 2012 the then 30-year-old John Peel had gotten her pregnant as a 15-year-old during a three-month affair back in 1969.
The Daily Mail reported that in 1989, John Peel told The Sunday Correspondent: “Girls used to queue up outside. By and large not usually for shagging. Oral sex they were particularly keen on, I remember. One of my, er, regular customers, as it were, turned out to be 13, though she looked older.”
And back in 1975, he said in an interview with The Guardian: “All they wanted me to do was abuse them, sexually, which, of course, I was only too happy to do.”
As recently as 2004, he told The Herald he’d had sexual contact with “an awful lot” of underage girls. John Peel died of a heart attack later that same year and Glastonbury’s New Bands Tent was renamed The John Peel Stage the following summer.
He was a presenter for the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage in the years before his death.
The petition is still available on change.org and has been updated today with the ‘victory’ status. The page now states “This petition made change with 1,820 supporters!“
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In other Glasto news, the first 54 artists from this summer’s line-up are now confirmed, with Arctic Monkeys and Guns N’ Roses topping the bill alongside previously announced Elton John.
The official line-up poster, shown below, was revealed around 9:40AM this morning. Lizzo will play the Pyramid Stage before Guns N’ Roses on Saturday while Lil Nas X will play before Elton John’s final-ever UK show on the Sunday night. Cat Stevens will play the Sunday afternoon ‘Legends Slot’.
Emily Eavis also confirmed the often-rumoured Spice Girls appearance will not be happening, at least this year, saying it’s “not a conversation we are having”. She also revealed there could be two female headliners next year with one of them already being booked.
Guns N’ Roses were booked after a previously arranged female headline act dropped out, which many think could have been Taylor Swift.
Queens of the Stone Age featured in the list upon publication but were removed shortly afterwards – and they’re also missing from the line-up poster.
Tickets sold out within minutes when they went on sale back in November but resales of cancelled tickets are expected later this spring. A raffle is currently taking place to raise money for the DEC’s Turkey-Syria earthquake appeal with 10 pairs of tickets up for grabs, each with a “once-in-a-lifetime” Glastonbury experience attached like watching a set from the Pyramid Stage viewing platform.
Glastonbury Festival 2023 will take place from Wednesday 21st to Sunday 25th June at Worthy Farm, Pilton.
Image credits:
Zetkin / CC BY-SA 3.0
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