Jade's Music Blog

It promised to be the summer of sound, an unprecedented celebration of Merseyside's burgeoning music scene. Suddenly it's all gone rather flat, with the cancellation of two festivals in as many days.

Those disappointed ny Livefest can at least take comfort in being able to go to see Echo and the Bunnymen and John Power for free at Eclectica on the same day, but what will happen with Mathew Street?

The bands were all lined up to play, the fans were looking forward to it, and now it's all for nothing because the infrastructure just isn't there for it to happen. The council have cited health and safety concerns for their decision.

City council chief executive Colin Hilton has said: “We’ve done everything we can to make sure the festival goes ahead and explored every possible alternative, but there comes a point where you can do no more, and this is it. Everyone is hugely disappointed.”

Culture Company chief executive Jason Harborow added: “In many ways, Mathew Street has become a victim of its own success this year.

“The huge growth in the popularity of the festival, combined with the loss of the Pier Head, presented us with a massive problem.

“Unfortunately, that problem has proved to be insurmountable.

“We worked hard to try and find a way to stage the event in the city centre, but even after months of planning we were still not satisfied.

“As a last resort we employed national safety experts Capita Symonds to see if they could see a way through these intractable problems. Sadly, they’ve concluded there’s still too great a risk.”

What are your views? Are you in a band that was due to play or have you been looking forward to seeing some of your favourite acts perform live? Do you think this will reflect badly on our capital of culture year and would you like to see some kind of alternative to the Mathew Street Festival in the same weekend? Leave your comments below and log onto the music forum

http://forums.icnorthwest.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=49