The annual Glastonbury music festival is one of the biggest in the world, both in terms of the number of people who attend, and the worldwide acclaim for the event. The man behind it all? Step forward Michael Eavis, the dairy farmer turned festival supremo.

Eavis, now 73-years-old, started holding the Glastonbury festival in 1971 after being inspired by Led Zeppelin’s performance at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music the previous year. It’s since been held every year or two and grown bigger and bolder.

As the founder of the festival, Michael Eavis has made the 2009 TIME 100, a list of the most influential people on Earth. Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, wrote the tribute piece explaining why Eavis deserved his place on the list.

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Barely a month ago, Oasis announced they would be playing China for the first ever. The Beijing and Shanghai shows were to form a far east trio of gigs on their current world tour along with one in Hong Kong.

Now, the gigs have been forcibly canceled due to the Chinese government revoking the band’s licenses to play. Oasis were deemed “unsuitable” to visit the country thanks to supposed links with the ‘Free Tibet’ movement.

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After all the bitterness surrounding Oasis and Jay-Z after they had a little spat earlier in the year, it seems that the two artists have put their differences behind them and teamed up.

Or maybe not. But there is a mixtape featuring them both now available online.

The spat between Oasis and Jay-Z began when Jay-Z was announced as a headliner for Glastonbury 2008. Noel Gallagher stated in no uncertain terms that Jay was wrong for the traditionally more rock festival. Then Jay-Z actually played his set and mocked Gallagher by covering Wonderwall.

The spat carried on when Gallagher criticized Mark Ronson by claiming he only knew two chords on the guitar. Ronson fought back by mentioning Wonderwall and stating that he was “thinking of doing an Oasis/Jay-Z remix album a la ‘The Grey Album’. Potential titles are ‘Champagne Superhova’ or ‘Definitely Jay Z’.”

Ronson may have only been joking, but his remark seems to have started a trio of producers and DJs who go by the name of Cookin’ Soul thinking seriously about doing exactly what Ronson was proposing.

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Mark Ronson is a confident (some would say cocky) young man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He’s a super-producer who has not only been one of the main reasons for Amy Winehouse‘ worldwide success but has also released his own album full of cleverly re imagined covers.

So the man knows his stuff, which is why it’s no surprise to see that he is the first person to have reacted to Noel Gallagher’s drunken rant about various musicians and artists the other day. In fact, rather than just defend himself, Ronson went on the attack, and owned Gallagher.

Speaking to Radio One, Gallagher had said this about Ronson:

“He wants to write his own tunes instead of ruining everyone else’s. Mark Ronson needs to learn three chords on the guitar and write a tune.”

Now, writing on his MySpace Blog, Ronson has hit back with some jibes of his own and even brought up the subject of Jay-Z. Gallagher had earlier criticised the decision to have Jay-Z headlining Glastonbury, and Jay-Z had fought back by covering Wonderwall at the start of his festival set.

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I’m sure I’m living in some kind of time bubble as I keep experiencing deja vu, again, and again, and again. Just yesterday I reported how Amy Winehouse had hit one of her fans, yes, another one. And now Noel Gallagher has taken a pop at some of his fellow British artists. Didn’t he do that last week, and the week before?

The older Gallagher was being interviewed on BBC Radio One, and was reportedly in a state of drunkenness, when he decided to go to town on a whole host of British singers and groups. This comes just a few months after he slagged Jay-Z off, a tirade he has now tried to backtrack on.

According to AFP, in the interview he described Amy Winehouse as a “destitute horse”. He then turned his attention to Winehouse’ friend and producer Mark Ronson.

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How strange, we don’t hear a peep out of Oasis or the Gallagher brothers for months, and then as soon as a new album is on the way, they can’t keep their mouths shut. Surely after 17 years of being in the band, you’d think the pair would know better than to create some cheap publicity.

We’ve already had Noel Gallagher slagging off the decision to have Jay-Z as headliner at Glastonbury. That ended with Noel having to eat his words as Jay-Z put on a brilliant performance. Now Liam has decided to go after Radiohead and Coldplay, and more importantly, their legions of fans.

Dig Out Your Soul is due out on October 6th, and the Mancunian brothers have started doing interviews with the press again in an effort to drum up some momentum. Liam spoke to Times Online about life, love, being a celebrity, and being a father. It was all delivered in his usual style, with the f word spread liberally around.

You can read the full interview if you want, but as is my job, I’m going to draw your attention to just the most obnoxious and intriguing things he said.

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Glastonbury 2008 was a bit of a mixed bag - with poor ticket sales meaning there were still places for the festival available on the day it started, but some outstanding performances from artists such as Amy Winehouse, Editors, and The Verve ultimately saving the day. The weather was also okay after an initial downpour.

Then there was the highly controversial set by Jay-Z, not controversial for anything he said or did on stage, but because it was Jay-Z… at Glastonbury. Some people didn’t like the fact that a rapper was given headlining status at a traditionally indie and folk venue.

Now it’s all over, and the festival’s organisers, headed by Michael and Emily Eavis, are already planning for Glastonbury 2009. They have attempted to address the ticketing problem by releasing the bulk of the tickets early - this October to be precise.

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Radiohead have received almost nothing but praise for challenging music industry standards when they released In Rainbows on to the Internet last year, and invited people to pay what they wanted for the privilege of downloading the album.

In effect, this meant you could nab a brand new album by one of the best British bands ever, for free.

Step forward Noel Gallagher, Oasis’ guitarist and chief songwriter. He’s not impressed with the idea, and vows never to do the same for an Oasis album.

Which is a shame because Oasis’ new album Dig Out Your Soul is due out in a few months, and I would have loved the chance to nab it for a penny.

Gallagher of course, is no stranger to controversy, and is a master of saying what he thinks in a blunt manner, knowing that he will gain publicity for his comments. This can sometimes land him in trouble though, as his negative comments about Jay-Z headlining Glastonbury spectacularly backfired when Jay-Z mocked him at the start of his set, and then went on to triumph.

So I wonder what the fall out will be from his latest comments about Radiohead, In Rainbows, and releasing a new album.

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This time last week, Jay-Z was about to take to the main stage at Glastonbury to finally perform the gig which had caused a mass of hysterical controversy over the past few months.

In the run-up to the gig, I took a long, hard look at the controversy over the booking of Jay-Z as a headline act at the long-running festival, a controversy which seemed to stem from the belief by some that a hip-hop artists wasn’t right for the venue, and especially as the main headline act on the Saturday night.

Then the gig came and went, and Jay-Z pretty much managed to blow all the previous arguments away, putting on an historic show which delighted the vast majority of people who saw it, either live or on television. Some still weren’t impressed though, with The Sun’s showbiz editor Gordon Smart one of the few journalists blind enough to walk away disappointed.

While everyone is entitled to their opinion, Smart, and The Sun newspaper as a whole have been very critical over the past few weeks of Jay-Z and Michael Eavis’ decision to give him a headline slot at Glastonbury. And Jay-Z didn’t take too kindly to the bad review.

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Jay-Z finally took to the stage last night to fulfil his headline slot at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival. The gig was one of the most talked about of the year before it even happened, with many people feeling that Jay-Z and hip-hop weren’t right for a traditionally indie music festival.

I wrote a long piece last weekend looking at the controversy surrounding Jay-Z’s booking as the Saturday night headline act, and asking what the reasons behind the hate were.

In the end, although some festival-goers did shun the performance, many loved it, the response Jay-Z got was fantastic, and he silenced his critics with a majestic show.

The BBC showed the whole set live, and so I was fortunate to be able to watch it from start to finish. The video embedded below shows Jay-Z’s explosive entrance on to the stage after being introduced by Zane Lowe.

Jay-Z first flipped the proverbial finger towards Noel Gallagher, one of the high-profile people who made their opinion about his place at the festival know, by doing a cover of Oasis hit Wonderwall, before launching in to his songs, starting with 99 Problems.

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