GLASTONBURY is often a sea of macs but next summer one big one will be missing – Fleetwood Mac.
I can reveal they will not play the 50th anniversary festival in June after talks with organisers Emily and Michael Eavis, which had been promising earlier in the year, broke down over money.
Bookies’ favourites for two of the headline slots, Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift, are believed to have agreed to play Worthy Farm.
So Fleetwood Mac’s absence now leaves the third slot wide open.
My festival insider said: “Fleet-wood Mac have been approached several times over the years and it has never happened.
“But Michael is a huge fan and really, really wanted to make it work. He knew getting them on board for the 50th anniversary would be extra special and conversations were positive.
“They even hinted at it on stage when they played Wembley in June, joking to fans they still had, ‘a big field to play’ at ‘a rained-out festival in England next year’.
“But ultimately, while Mick Fleetwood was up for it with the money on offer, other members didn’t feel it was worthwhile.”
Having flown to New York to see them at Madison Square Garden earlier this year, I am gutted they couldn’t put the money issue aside to deliver a historic performance.
Glasto raises millions for charity and they should support that. Now there is the tough decision over who else could take the slot. Foals, heavily tipped to appear, just announced a 2020 tour.
Or Mel B may get Victoria Beckham to reunite with the Spice Girls — but I wouldn’t count on it. Elton John, The 1975 and US rapper Kendrick Lamar are in the mix too.
But if Macca and Taylor are there, they could have The Cheeky Girls headlining the third night and it would still be a brilliant line-up.
DISNEY’s cinema reboot of The Lion King made more than £1.3billion but Elton John wasn’t forking out for a ticket.
Elton won an Oscar with Tim Rice for their song Can You Feel The Love Tonight in the 1994 original. But he claims the remake soundtrack has been “messed up”.
It included new versions of his tunes Circle of Life, Hakuna Matata and I Just Can’t Wait To Be King – but did not feature a planned collaboration between him and Beyonce.
Elton said: “The new version of The Lion King was a huge disappointment to me, because I believe they messed the music up.
“Music was so much a part of the original and the music in the current film didn’t have the same impact.
“The magic and joy were lost. The soundtrack hasn’t had nearly the same impact in the charts that it had 25 years ago, when it was the bestselling album of the year.”
In a chat with GQ magazine Elton said: “I wish I’d been invited to the party more, but the creative vision for the film and its music was different this time around and I wasn’t treated with the same level of respect.
“That makes me extremely sad.” They made a big mistake.
CHERYL Tweedy has a hard-hitting message for her critics.
The fiery Geordie singer wore this T-shirt emblazoned with “You ain’t s***” as she made a surprise appearance on stage at US singer Todrick Hall’s London Palladium gig on Sunday.
Cheryl performed with her new The Greatest Dancer co-star as he belted out hit Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels.
If this is anything to go by I can’t wait for the second series to start.
IT spent five weeks at No1 and was the best-selling song of 2013.
But in the wake of #MeToo, Pharrell Williams has denounced Blurred Lines, his track with Robin Thicke, over its sexist lyrics.
He told GQ mag: “Some of my old songs I would never write or sing today. Blurred Lines opened me up. I didn’t get [the backlash] at first.
‘I know you want it’, women sing those kinds of lyrics all the time. Then I realised there are men who use that same language when taking advantage of a woman.
“I realised that we live in a chauvinist culture in our country.”
GRUESOME twosome Lily Allen and Stranger Things actor David Harbour are more unsettling than anything you’d find in The Upside Down.
The pair confirmed their unlikely romance with a smooch on a day out in New York.
If I was to rate how uncomfortable this couple makes me on a scale of one to ten, I’d give them an 11.
KIM PETRAS will bring her Clarity tour to the UK and Ireland in February with shows in Dublin, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and London.
The German singer will today release the video for latest single Icy.
AVRIL Lavigne will return to the UK next year for two major shows – after nearly nine years away.
The Sk8er Boi singer, whose debut album Let Go came out in 2002, almost died after contracting Lyme disease in 2014 but is now making a monumental comeback.
I can reveal she will perform at London’s Brixton Academy on April 1 and Manchester’s O2 Apollo the following night as she takes her Head Above Water tour global.
It promises to feature some of her biggest hits, including Girlfriend, I’m With You and Complicated, plus tracks from new album Head Above Water – her first for six years.
Since being discovered as a 16-year-old the Canadian singer-songwriter has scored seven UK top ten hits and sold more than 40million albums.
She has fallen back in love with singing and performing after taking her show around the United States and she can’t wait to bring it to this side of the Pond.
Avril said: “I can’t believe how quickly it went by.
“I truly missed being on stage, singing has brought me so much happiness.”
Tickets for the tour, which also includes ten dates across Europe, go on sale on Friday.
After all that she has been through, it will be great to have her back.
I DON’T expect Hollywood stars to have a stellar grasp of British geography.
But I have to pull up Robert Downey Jr for having a Welsh accent as Doctor Dolittle in the kids’ film out in January.
The man who could “talk to the animals” is from the West Country in the books.
And he is said to be based on a real surgeon from East Kilbride, with Robert expected to adopt a Scottish accent for the film.
He is the third film Doctor after Rex Harrison in 1967 and Eddie Murphy in 1998.
But he’s the only one who sounds like he should have a cameo in Gavin & Stacey.
RIHANNA has said her “dream” is to become a mum, and also defended women who don’t want to talk about having a baby.
She said: “A lot of woman get very defensive. It’s personal, it’s our bodies and of course it’s our time. “It’s not everyone’s dream to be a mum . . . but it’s mine, so I’m fine.”
JUST a week after they got together, Miley Curys’s latest love interest Cody Simpson has written a song about her – and he is gearing up to release it in days.
He said: “I wrote her a song that she’s pretty much forcing me to put out. She was like, ‘If you don’t put this s**t out, I’m putting it out on your behalf’.”
ELBOW and Guy Garvey are leading the race for No1 with their album Giants Of All Sizes outselling closest rival Ed Sheeran and No.6 Collaborations Project by five to one.
At this rate it will be their third chart-topper in a row. Lewis Capaldi’s Divinely Unin-spired To A Hellish Extent is at No3.
CAMILA Cabello struck up an unlikely friendship with Spice Girl Geri Horner at Paris Fashion Week.
On Capital’s Official Big Top 40, Camila said: “I’m obsessed with her . . . We were just talking, we were like best friends for a day. She gave me her number and she was like, ‘You’ve got a new friend in the UK’.”
