Corporate takeover?

As good as it is to see my home town taking the lead, if the future of live music is a sterile, heavily branded corporate picnic on a racecourse, then - as with drive-in gigs - I think I'll pass.

And yet, in the continued absence of any kind of government bailout, it's hard to see how the nation's live music scene can survive without significant corporate sponsorship of this sort, even if the industry's super rich were to dip deep into their own pockets.

The Tories' lack of support for the creative industries remains both utterly baffling and infuriating. I wouldn't have expected the spineless, self-serving philistines to have any inkling of what music means to people, but surely the enormous contribution that it makes to the economy speaks to them in language they understand?