Features The Electric Proms: Not The Livewire Success It Wanted To Be

So, it’s farewell to the BBC Electric Proms. The Camden-based event, which ran for five years, was recently axed due to cost-cutting measures at the corporation. Ultimately this has led to a lot of strongly pro-BBC types bemoan their outrage, stating that this is the beginning of trying times.
Their certainly might be some truth to their disappointment. However, when all things are considered, this might turn out to be a good decision.

Whilst people might fondly remember past gigs, the event has been laced with issues since the start. In 2006, it launched as a sort of inner-city festival with events taking place in a few key venues. However, the launch of Camden Crawl, which covered more venues in Camden than you could shake a fake vintage hat at, just months later it instantly paled in comparison.

Their next trick was to use it as an opportunity for punters to see bands in a different way. In 2007, the Kaiser Chiefs teamed up with David Arnold and Mark Ronson did a show with the BBC Concert Orchestra. In subsequent years, Oasis would play with the Crouch End Festival Chorus and Dizzee Rascal would debut his live band, The Young Punx, alongside The Heritage Orchestra.

However, as memorable as these shows were, it had two problems. Firstly, it was in direct competition with the Meltdown festival by the South Bank, which features a far more diverse and interesting bill that is different each year due to it being curated by a different artist each year; Massive Attack’s Meltdown in 2008, for example, had Elbow with a male choir, Gang Of Four, Grace Jones, a reggae showcase, a dubstep showcase and the Heritage Orchestra playing the Blade Runner soundtrack among other glorious treats. The Electric Proms, in comparison, felt like organisers trying to book artists who were touring a new album and trying to find a marketable and fashionable twist in order to get the punters in.

Last year, it was re-branded to suit a Radio 2 audience and, as such, the line up represented this in spades: Elton John, Robert Plant and Neil Diamond. Sure, they collaborated with artists such as Leon Russell, the London Oriana Choir and Amy MacDonald, but these were now the only gigs in an event that, over the course of its brief history, had gradually scaled down more and more.

The BBC can do wonderful things musically. There its own original Proms, which delights those who classical buffs and those who are casual fans, its summer festival coverage that trumps anything that any other channel (V Festival presented by the presenters of T4? Great! Let me get my earplugs so I can drown out the banal waffle) can offer and its radio output, 6music especially, is diverse and there’s most likely to be something for everyone. However, the Electric Proms didn’t really become the permanent fixture in the music calendar that it aspired to be. If anything, its cancellation means more money for its premier content, which isn’t a bad thing at all.