Suzanne Vega was told by police to pull out of headlining Glastonbury after receiving death threats.
The ‘Luka’ hitmaker was due to be the first female to top the bill at the annual music festival back in 1989 but her performance almost didn’t go ahead because of the threats that had come from her touring bassist’s stalker, but she refused to take the advice from cops.
She told The i newspaper: “They had included me in the threats. Scotland Yard sat me down and said, ‘We advise you not to do the show.’ I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
After making it clear she planned to perform, police asked Suzanne, now 65, to wear a bulletproof vest on stage for her own protection.
She recalled: “A man from Scotland Yard took his and said, ‘You’ll have to wear this.’ He was twice my size, so I had to gaffer tape myself into this giant bulletproof vest, and then put a denim jacket over it. It felt like every song was 20 minutes long. It was not comfortable. We were all nervous.”
But despite her discomfort, Suzanne is happy with her history-making performance.
She said: “I’m proud of being the first woman to headline. There’s nothing diminished about that.”
The ‘Tom’s Diner’ hitmaker recently marked the 40th anniversary of her self-titled debut album and admitted she never expected to enjoy the level of success that she has had.
She said: “I had expected to remain underground for most of my life. And it still may happen that I’m discovered after my death.
“Emily Dickinson sitting at her desk, what were her thoughts? Now we have schools named after her. So you don’t know. I just prefer to think about what’s going on right now.”
Suzanne’s latest album ‘Flying with Angels’ features “songs of struggle” but she gave it a more uplifting title than her original plan of ‘Survival of the Fittest’ because she felt it was what people “need”.
She explained: “But then if you call your tour [‘Survival of the Fittest’] it sounds ominous or like a game show. So ‘Flying with Angels’ just felt to me like we need this now. We need protection. We need guidance.”