I would think older acts get sort of trapped into other peoples expectations. I knew Bizarre Uproar was not very interested to sort of "serve crowd what they came for". Musically of course, but the expectations for side-show was getting tiresome as BU has many ways of playing during and eventually seemed like people expected that one thing. Same could be said about Grunt too. Not that these are "legacy acts". Always active and doing new thing.
But I think S&Q or The Haters aren't necessary doing "weak shows", but they are doing other things than audience came for. If S&Q plays at the fest, in same way they would do in pub corner in Manchester, just weird goofy bizarre nonsense performance with no aim to be "kick ass noise show", it would seems like they're on top of their game, just audience expects something else. Like The Haters. Of course people want to ripping harsh set to see, but it would be totally THE HATERS, to rip sheets of paper and sounding... perhaps awful? At least not the mosh pit noise gig.
I am not particularly interested in some of the current age bookings, where artist discography shows he did great things back in 1984, on rugged tape recordings. Since then nothing happened for few decades. So what will be the 2026 live show? I am not particularly interested, but also not opposed that someone wants to give a try to artists who meant a lot for them.
Perhaps this is rather suitable for other topic, but I'll see if necessary to split the discussion.
