Re Alexis Petridis’s article (You want to sue Madonna for being late on stage? She’s an artist not a service industry worker, 19 January), at the risk of sounding like an old fart, how can it be acceptable for Madonna to start a concert two hours late, causing great inconvenience to concert-goers (whatever they paid for their tickets), when a full symphony orchestra of dozens of musicians is seldom more than a few minutes late? When did the expectation that a concert begin on time become a “misplaced sense of entitlement”?
Jane Gillon
Oakham, Rutland
• So some people have a problem with the artist turning up late (Is Madonna tardiness lawsuit death knell to rock’n’roll behaviour?, 19 January)? They should have tried following Johnny “I’ve never missed a gig in my life” Thunders around London in the 1980s. The ticket would say “Doors open 8pm”; at about 10pm we’d be thinking if he doesn’t turn up soon we’ll miss the last tube home, and on one occasion he appeared on stage at 2am – which meant the early tubes were just starting up by the time he’d finished. Not to mention the legendary Limelight club gig where after 20 minutes he walked off stage and headed for New York. We wouldn’t have expected anything less.
Warren Brown
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
• Michael Fellows and Jonathan Hadden, who have filed a lawsuit against Madonna, should count themselves lucky; had they been fans of the Fall they would have witnessed some proper disruptive behaviour, courtesy of Mark E Smith. Once, after waiting two hours to see the band, they played for 20 minutes while Smith lambasted the audience from behind the speakers, called everyone a C-word and left the building.
Steve Drayton
Newcastle upon Tyne
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