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Belle and Sebastian asking for charity at gigs (question!)
Hi, hope you don't mind me asking this but one of my fave bands are Belle and Sebastian but I'd find it hard to listen to them after last night. They played Glasgow (2000 people, three nights, all three sold out) at £30 ticket head which, after I bought a ticket for my girlfriend, and then travel through to Glasgow, resulted in near £100 for a night out. I'm not a wealthy guy so this was quite an expense.
Half way through the gig the band stopped, said they would now "busk" and then handed around a bucket for "charity" purposes. They finished by saying "can't wait to count what is in there."
No mention was made of them giving anything, topping or trebling what was in the bucket out of their own pockets, or any of the overpriced merchandise sales (£20 a t-shirt) or ticket royalties, going to charity.
I gave a couple of quid myself and I am all for charity but this felt very Bono to me: wealthy people (B and S are worth a fair few bob, no?) asking others to "give".
I heard Arcade Fire were giving donations from their new tour of Haiti - surely that's the right way to go about something like this? As it now stands I'm not sure I'd listen to B and S again - does anyone know if they actually are giving a chunk of their current tour earnings to charity themselves?