Rock Sound editor Ben Patashnik has written an informed blog about why he feels cancelling Sonisphere Festival UK is such sad (or as he puts it, ‘crap’) news. It’s an inspired piece and Ben raises some credible issues:

For rock music as a whole, an event such as this being struck out will make the national news. And that shines a whole load of negative publicity on a subculture that’s not taken seriously by the mainstream at the best of times; after that whole ‘rock is dead’ bollocks that surfaced a few months ago, this just looks bad for all of us. There isn’t anyone involved with rock who doesn’t suffer from a festival of this magnitude being cancelled – fans, bands, booking agents, promoters, temporary staff, journalists, photographers, caterers, managers, crew… the number of people affected by this is in the tens of thousands. And no one gets into rock music for the cash, so this is just a bunch of guys and girls who have spent their lives working in AC/DC t-shirts who’ve lost out in a big time.

Click here to read the full thing on Rock Sound’s website.