A music festival that will feature Sister Bliss, Primal Scream and Roger Daltrey reprising the rock opera Tommy, has taken its popuular horse-meat sausages off the menu on the day that former The Smith’s frontman and celebrity vegetarian Morrissey will play.
Jan Cools, who heads the organisers behind the 10-day Lokerse Feesten in Flanders reportedly said; “when we got the booking, we decided to offer that day meat-free.”
The ban was not a condition for Morrissey’s appearance added Cools, but August 4, when the Mancuniam muso appears will not see food vendors offering their usual sausage rolls and snails, they will be replaced by vegetarian food.
“Morrissey is a big vegetarian, it only seemed right to offer that because we were just so pleased to get him,” said Cools.”Mind you, we have had quite a few angry reactions from fans who know about our famous sausages, but we’re not telling festival-goers ‘don’t eat meat,’ they’ll just have to get them off-site on the day.”
The festival will also feature Joe Cocker, Thin Lizzy, the Heartbreaks and Paolo Nutini and runs from July 29 to closing act Sister Bliss’s Faithless DJ set almost two weeks later on August 8.
Morrisey made clear his support for vegetarianism early in his career with The Smiths’ second album entitled Meat is Murder. It topped the album chart in 1985 and was instrumental in persuading many a young fan to try tofu and lentils for the very first time.
Two years ago Morrissey famously stopped a performance at the Californian Coachella festival after he smelt meat cooking on a barbeque near the stage. The singer is said to have commented, “I can smell burning flesh,” before adding: ” . . . and I hope to God it’s human.”