The rise of the 'by request' set list

Joy Division legend Peter Hook is taking requests

It's incredible something with as dreadful a name as Napster had such a revolutionary impact on music consumption. The peer-to-peer file-sharing site, arguably the most mainstream one of its kind, gave music fans an unprecedented power over artists which the latter has been struggling to regain balance from ever since its launch in 1999. 

In retrospect, the developments that followed feel inevitable - the rise of paid-for downloading via iTunes, then streaming through Last.fm, Youtube and Spotify and the move towards big bucks large gigs and insanely pricey festivals becoming the main money spinner. They have been accompanied by a torrent of other changes to music consumption from on demand radio to using social media. 

The prevalence of a new phenomenon - the 'by request' set - has been exemplified by this year's festival line ups. Metal giants Metallica are putting their set at Sonisphere, which takes place at Knebworth in July, to a public vote. The democratic gig will see fans polled on which songs they wanted to hear by getting an online code when they buy a ticket. The festival will also see Metallica joint-headline with Iron Maiden for the first time in the UK, quite a coup for the metal fest.

At Alt-Fest, Peter Hook & the Light will follow their set playing the entirety of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures (another recently revived trend in performing whole records) with an encore picked by the fans. They will be able to vote from a selection of Joy Division tracks on Facebook for the six-song encore at the festival in Northamptonshire in August. 

Hook said: "Having played some 200 gigs with The Light now, I've found that the fans all have their own particular favourite tracks which they want to hear live. It's a great idea to throw some of the set list over to the people at Alt-Fest to see what they most want to hear us play." 

Hook's decision flies in the face of many musicians who - through fatigue at playing the same songs repeatedly or simply stubbornness - deliberately shun fan favourites. Neil Young assured crowds on his 1973 English tour of Tonight's the Night that they would hear some 'old stuff you've heard before' after he'd played his new record live in full, then promptly played the whole album in full again claiming the audience knew it by then - class. 
Back in the present, ShadowPlay favourite Buck 65 is among a raft of artists who regularly use Twitter to ask their audiences what they'd like to hear during that evening's gig. 

As social media brings fans and artists closer together than they've ever been, and gives artists more instantaneous feedback on which songs fans love, it's natural musicians are more mindful in composing sets. To my mind, there's no problem with it - it's just a more organised variation on calling out for a favourite tune live. But artists may need to take care they do not simply become karaoke acts, playing to fans' demands at every turn.


The balance of power has clearly well and truly shifted but musicians need to be given licence to have control over their performance. 

On the Road signals the remarkable transformation of Sam Riley

Sam Riley

Adapting Jack Kerouac's landmark novel On the Road for the big screen was never going to be easy. Director Walter Salles has, however, approached the project with guts and pulled off a masterstroke in leftfield casting which turns what could have been an average film into one to remember. 

Sam Riley, an Englishman in his early 30s living in Berlin who's professional acting career is less than six years old, leads the impressive ensemble cast as narrator Sal Paradise in the story of a novelist who travels across America looking for inspiration for his debut book. 

Salles' choice of Riley is perhaps most astonishing due to his origins. I first encountered the Yorkshireman as the enthralling frontman of Leeds pub rock band 10,000 Things who I saw play a few times, mainly in Sheffield and had a quick chat once at a shambolic gig in a student halls of residence. Riley himself, ever energetic on stage dressed in a ruffled grey suit, blatantly thought plenty of himself and it was this confidence and antagonism which is likely to have led to the band's implosion after one record on Polydor in 2005. They remain the authors of Dogsbody, one of the catchiest post-pub bellowers in my considerable boozy singing armoury and Riley had the rough edges still firmly etched on what he is now. 

However I was surprised and nervous when I heard Riley was to play the lead in one of my favourite books, Touching From a Distance, Deborah Curtis' account of life living with Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis in Control. I needn't have worried. Riley, playing Curtis in a the film which was shot in my hometown of Nottingham because Manchester had become too well developed to pass for the 1970s version of itself, was astonishing. Selected for his ability to sing the songs live in filming, he mastered Curtis' movements on stage and portaged the tortured frontman and talented genus perfectly. Riley's role alongside Helen Mirren as Pinkie Brown in an adaptation of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock also won him plaudits and it would've been good to see him play the Fall frontman Mark E Smith in 24 Hour Party People had the scenes not been cut. 

But Sal Paradise is a different beast. Portrayed with a gravelly accent and held up as the finest penmanship of Kerouac, one of the beat poet movements foremost figures alongside Allen Ginsberg, he had to add  softened literary touch to his brusk roles. 

Paradise is actually, due to being a sponge taking on others' inspirations, perhaps not a typical lead character. Ever in the wake of friend and idol Dean Moriaty from who he learns of a fake working class living, Riley's Paradise is ever scribbling what others say on a tiny notepad or watching on as one of the multiple sex scenes grinds away. 

Personally, Kerouac doesn't quite do it for me. What he stands for - post-war liberalisation, challenging widely held ideas and downing plenty of booze in the process - I support, however his particular brand of Americanised pretentiousness is often difficult to swallow. When it comes to stream of consciousness writers, I would much prefer to read Lester Bangs lauding Iggy & the Stooges for 20,000 words from a different era. So it is to Salles' credit that the pretentious elements are kept to a minimum and that an ensemble cast which includes Steve Buscemi getting shagged by a man and Kirsten Dunst looking decidedly world weary. The film itself is a little long at two hours ten minutes but the humour, great blues music and careful dialogue of what sometimes feels like a collection of scenes is enough to keep viewers engaged as it trawls across the US.

Riley brought gravitas, panache and humour to a role that drastically needed it and showed himself to be that rare kind of Yorkshireman who can reinvent himself yet stay true to his routes.