Vince Power: The man from the Mean Fiddler goes solo. And he won't be playing the City

It's 10.50am in Soho and Vince Power, the founder and former boss of Mean Fiddler, is 20 minutes late for the interview. So is this the behaviour of a rock god who likes to keep his audience waiting? No. "He's not very good in the mornings," his assistant explains sheepishly. Then he arrives, unshaven, with his unironed shirt hanging out, and is all apologies. You would not think he had pocketed around £13m when he sold his controlling stake in Mean Fiddler to the US media group Clear Channel last year.

The softly spoken Irishman came to London 43 years ago when he was 16 and opened a chain of furniture shops in north London before moving into music and bars. In a high-profile industry dominated by egos, he does not conform to the stereotype of a music promoter: he is reluctant to have his photo- graph taken outside his West End office.

And Power certainly does not fit the image of the brash and arrogant promoter. Maybe that's because he remembers his life as an outsider. Far from being part of the capital's trendy clubbing set when he was young, he was more used to having nightclub doors slammed in his face.

"When I was a teenager in London, I was always turned away at the door. 'You don't fit, you're not the right type.' I used to hate that. Now I can go to my own place and I never get turned away."

Power founded the Mean Fiddler empire with the opening of a small club in Harlesden in 1982. He added a string of venues, as well as events such as the Reading Festival, and turned it into the largest music promoter in Europe. But he didn't enjoy having to answer to the City when the company floated on the Alternative Investment Market in 2001. He describes once telling analysts about an event he was planning. "You have a field,and say you're going to get £5m for a festival but there are lots of cows on it at the moment. The City asks if you own it and I say 'I don't want to, I don't need to, I only need it for one week.' But they want tangible stuff."

You get the sense that Power does not suffer fools gladly, especially those bearing Power-Point presentations. In fact, it's hard to see how he ran a public company for so long, even if investors in the music industry do make allowances for what they call a "creative type" [read "pain in the arse"].

The fundamental problem with the industry is that it is hard to predict trends, he says. "It's a sexy business to invest in but in reality it's also risky."

Shareholders in music group Sanctuary, which had to make an emergency rights issue earlier this year in order to stay afloat, are learning this lesson the hard way, he points out.

"It's always an ongoing battle between record companies and artists. They sign a piece of paper and take the money. But it's not a conveyor belt. It's the problem with Sanctuary: you can make all the presentations but you cannot say how it works.

"When I went to the City, I said my business is much more solid: we sell this amount of beer every night. But they weren't interested in pints of beer, more in Elton John's catalogue."

With most music festivals in Britain selling out within days just as album sales tumble, he may have a point.

Now he has left Mean Fiddler, he doesn't have to worry about justifying his decisions. Last year he set up Vince Power Music Group to launch new events, bars and restaurants (the latest of which, At Proud, opened last month in north London). "It's a nicer feeling now," he says. "I've shed a huge amount of office and staff. There's less administration."

On 20 July, Benicassim, his maiden music festival post Mean Fiddler, will take place in Spain. He plans to start his own record label later this summer and wants to organise a festival in Tirana, the capital of Albania.

He does, however, credit Mean Fiddler - during his stewardship of the company, admittedly - with rescuing the Glastonbury Festival. Under an initial three-year deal he signed in 2002 with Michael Eavis, the organiser and owner of the site at Worthy Farm in Somerset, Mean Fiddler took operational control of the festival and a 40 per cent stake in Mr Eavis's company.

"As much as Michael may hate big corporations, he does need someone like Mean Fiddler there. The last four have been the best: no big accidents, no fatalities, no gangs or drug dealers."

He is less complimentary about Live8. "Music has been hijacked a bit here. The people who benefit from these gigs are the record companies: you have big acts on a huge stage watched by 60 million people."

But he says music has lost its power to inspire a generation anyway. "There's not much of a political message in songs now. If people like something, they buy it. They don't listen to the lyrics. Coldplay are very nice to listen to," he adds. It's not supposed to be a compliment.

Power has eight children, though listening to his philosophy on life, they shouldn't expect much of an inheritance. He claims it would "excite him" if he lost all his money.

Other rags-to-riches friends have made the mistake of showering gifts on their children, he says. "Their kids have never achieved anything themselves. It's a working-class guilt thing: you don't want your kids to go through the same strife you went through. I'd rather give all my money to charity than my kids."

Yet despite his slightly gruff demeanour, he sounds grateful for what he's got. "Look at how I abuse my body: I smoke all night and drink all night sometimes. But I'm healthy. I've been lucky. I don't believe in religion, but maybe there's an angel somewhere looking over me."

BIOGRAPHY

BORN 19 April 1947.

EDUCATION Dungarvan Vocational College.

CAREER

1964: sets up a chain of furniture shops in north London.

1982: opens the Mean Fiddler club in Harlesden, north London.

1982-2003: adds new venues to the Mean Fiddler business, including Powerhaus, Subterania, The Jazz Café, The Forum, The Complex and G-A-Y.

1989: begins promoting the Reading Festival.

1990: launches The Fleadh music festival.

1999: starts promoting the Homelands Festival.

2002: Mean Fiddler takes operational control of Glastonbury.

2005: quits Mean Fiddler after company is acquired by US media group Clear Channel.

2006: launches Vince Power Music Group.