Vince Power
April 14th, 2009 by sparkyVince Power will talk at The Big Chill 2009.
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Vince Power – Biography
In popular music throughout the 80s, 90s and 00’s, Vince Power put on everyone who mattered – as well as everyone who didn’t. A million bands. A billion fans. He is a live music legend. Not bad going for a self-confessed Irish chancer who overcame absolute poverty to become pop music’s biggest promoter.
Vince Power was born in 1947 to a poor rural family, one of 11 children crammed into a small cottage in Kilmacthomas, County Waterford. His childhood, he says, “makes Angela’s Ashes look like good bedtime reading”. Aged 15, Power turned down an agricultural college scholarship in artificial bull insemination and chose to try his luck on the streets of London.
For the first couple of years he held a string of odd-jobs in factories and department stores. But Power possesses an entrepreneurial energy, which soon surfaced when he started trading second-hand furniture. The business quickly grew through the 1970s into a successful chain of north London shops. Yet furniture was just a way of funding the venture that was Power’s passion: live music.
A huge fan of country & western music, it was his long-standing ambition to open a honky-tonk bar like those in Nashville, Tennessee. And in 1982, that wish came true when he opened The Mean Fiddler in Harlesdon, North London. The venue quickly gained a reputation for its Irish music nights, showcasing new bands such as The Pogues and Billy Bragg. Within five years The Mean Fiddler was staging high-profile gigs by superstars such as Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Power dynamically expanded his operations, snapping up venues and nightclubs across London, including the Astoria, the Garage, the Forum, the Jazz Café, the Stratford Rex, Subterrania and Powerhaus. Within ten years, several major music festivals had been brought under the Mean Fiddler umbrella, including Fleadh, Reading, Leeds and Glastonbury.
That grubby little country & western club had burgeoned into sprawling £60m brand overseeing 8 music festivals, 14 live music venues, and umpteen clubs, restaurants and bars. Under Power’s management, dead-beat clubs became hip celebrity hangouts, tired concert halls became a home for up-and-coming British bands, boring festivals became must-see spectaculars of the summer.
Power’s professionalism in event promotion came combined with a personal touch, which saw him have a hand in all levels of the business. From negotiating with artists to dealing with the council, health and safety, the police, right down to the t-shirt sellers, he’s always strived to put on the perfect show for the public. “I love gatherings of people. It’s a great feeling. Sometimes, when I’m at Reading and see 50,000 people sitting on the grass… I get a sense of pride.”
In the last few years Power wound down his involvement in Mean Fiddler Plc. In 2005, he sold all his shares and parted with the company he founded.
Was that it for Vince Power? Had the band played its last note? No way. The show must go on. Power doesn’t nap. He didn’t become a £30m music magnate without possessing momentous drive and spirit. To a certain extent, Power cannot switch off. He so abhors the thought of slowing down, he once remarked: “I’ll retire when I’m six months dead.” And so Vince Power is back at the roulette table, unveiling a smorgasbord of exciting new venues through a new venture called VPMG.
www.vpmg.net
Vince Power will talk at The Big Chill 2009.
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