E-Street Band
guitarist Steven Van Zandt also took to Twitter to express his outrage. He said
the stars had planned a final encore number before the sound was cut off.
The 61-year-old
said: 'One of the great gigs ever in my opinion. But seriously, when did
England become a police state? Is there just too much fun in the world? We
would have been off by 11 if we'd done one more. On a Saturday night! Who were
we disturbing?
This was a big deal but we’re pointing the finger at the
wrong target. The truth is that, had Westminster Council allowed the event to
run even a minute past the allotted finish time – the licence – that killjoy
with a stopwatch somewhere within earshot of Hyde Park would have been on to
them threatening action.
We have become the antithesis of ‘live and let live’, a
nation of nosey parkers, busybodies and fussbuckets. Too many people are ready
to point out every last minute infringement – just so long as it’s done safely
by ringing up (or these days e-mailing) the authorities.
We seem unable to allow other people to have a modicum of
pleasure. Youngsters making some noise in the town square after a good night?
Binge drinking – get it stopped! Introduce curfews, ban outside drinking –
whatever it takes get them away from where they might (just might) offend our
ears or eyes.
A karaoke night at the local round the corner on a warm
summer night (oh, for one of those) – a few folk stray outside for a smoke or
perhaps a snog. And we’re on to the authorities about the pub’s license the next
day. How dare these people enjoy themselves in my presence?
Or the wedding party at the club – good times, dads
dancing, uncles getting a little drunk and cousins simpering over the best man.
And children running around getting under everyone’s feet, wallowing in the
excitement of staying up late. Nine o’clock arrives and our busybody is complaining
- the licence says no children after 9pm.
Everywhere I look, I see fun being spoiled by our
inability to let others live a little. We seem unable to tolerate a few minutes
inconvenience so as to allow others to celebrate. We’ve forgotten that urban
places – and we most of us live in urban places – are sometimes noisy. And we
seem to believe that licensing – the exercise of mostly pointless control – is the
way to proceed.
I recall, on one of those warm summer evenings, sitting
outside a nice bar on Street Lane in Leeds only to be ushered inside at eleven “because
of the licence”. So fifteen or so (anything but young) people dutifully
traipsed inside, finished our drinks and then went home. Our pleasure was
curtailed because some official in that big wedding cake building in the middle
of Leeds, backed up by councillors and urged on by fussbuckets had decreed that
drinking outside a quiet bar in the posh northern suburbs of the city
represents the precursor to drunken violence, mayhem and chaos (and might be a
little noisy).
Can’t we arrive at
a place where we no longer have the officious enforcement of arbitrary time
restrictions and move instead to a place where we agree reasonable behaviour? A
world where every now and then it’s OK for a few (hopefully well-behaved)
children to remain after nine? Where a group of no longer young folk can sit
outside a bar after eleven on a warm evening (when they’re doing no-one any
harm)?
And where
thousands of people who’ve paid a lot of money to watch a concert (and aren’t
about to riot) get to see the full set because someone’s seen sense and allowed
the band a little bit of leeway on finishing time.
But I guess this
won’t happen. It seems the new Puritans have won. And we are a worse nation for
it.
....
