Is it fair to complain when a performer, recently recovered from a life-threatening illness, cancels a show? What if the performer tries to go through with the show, only to abandon it halfway? And what if the half they did perform wasn't up to their usual standards? Is it wrong to get upset?
Well, when Kylie pulled out of her show at Manchester's MEN arena at the weekend - citing a chest infection - people did get upset. Not everybody, not even the majority, but a quick scan of the Manchester Evening News messageboards reveals dozens of punters upset at the cancellation of the show and the way in which it happened.
For some, their complaints are fuelled by the sheer effort it took to get a ticket, at around £50 a pop, and travel to the concert. For others, however, it seems that the fact Kylie played at all was a conspiracy to create the circumstances under which concertgoers could be denied the opportunity to get their money back. In fact, Kylie has now rescheduled her cancelled shows - including the one in which she bowed out halfway through - which makes those claims look pretty foolish.
However, even the most sensational (including the claim that suggests Kylie's martian owners made a clone play the concert in order to preserve the real thing for Venusfest scheduled for later in the month), still beg the question: what you can be entitled to expect when you attend a concert?
This is a particularly thorny matter when applied to rock bands. While tours such as Kylie's (and those by the Madonnas and U2s of this world) will be highly choreographed and edited, most other gigs can vary wildly in length, content and - of course - quality of performance. But if, picking a band entirely at random, Babyshambles were to come on stage, give a limp performance of four of their less famous numbers (though, thinking about it, what are their more famous ones?) and then storm off, the chances of you getting any of your hard-earned back are smaller than a baby through a telescope.
Now let's imagine another world in which a gig-goers' charter was constructed so that its basic terms could be violated only on pain of refund. I've got a few thoughts (and I'm sure you can all feel a "I'd like to know what you think" coming up) but I would like to know what you think. So here are my three:
• The band must take to the stage within an hour of the time they are supposed to take the stage by.
• They must perform their most successful song.
• They must finish by trashing one piece of musical equipment (it needn't be expensive - a tambourine will do).
Now over to you. Maybe we'll even get a proper document out of this and pass it on to Mr Mean Fiddler...
