Will: So - they're not all perfect all the time. However on many, many occasions I'm sure all the people mentioned above have been perfect, and it's rather sad to hear these people in the "worst performance" category. I also have one or two sorry experiences when hearing performers I was really looking forward to, but the very worst performances I've heard have been from very amateur performers at folk clubs - which is what you might expect.

A very good point. And accepting that people are sometimes under the weather for other than self-inflicted reasons, there will be times when otherwise great performers have off-days. I've been there, seen them, and made allowances.

But there is a level of resentment when you've paid a significant proportion of your week's income to see a "name" and they don't seem to be ill or otherwise unfit to perform, but are giving off an air that they can't really be bothered and being up there on the stage is just an ordeal they have to get through before moving on to somewhere they'd rather be.

That's somewhat different to someone like me rocking up at a pub and inflicting a couple of mistake-riddled ballads on a bunch of other people for 6 minutes out of a 3 hour session.