# Cat Stevens to go on tour **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 17, 2014, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709 "2014-09-17T04:03:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/1 "2014-09-17T04:03:23Z")
I’m sure it’s all over all news agencies by now, but here’s the [CBC](http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/cat-stevens-new-peace-train-tour-to-stop-in-canada-1.2767751) take on things. Wow. This is huge, IMHO. Cat Stevens was an icon of enormous proportion in the 1970s, and then dropped out of site when he converted to Islam. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/2 "2014-09-17T07:57:08Z")
It sounds like maybe one of his reasons was to help correct the image of Islam as violent which has pervaded the West in recent decades, when he is clearly a pacifist. I could definitely get behind that. ---
**Author:** ![Boogly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Boogly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boogly)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/3 "2014-09-17T08:53:12Z")
Maybe Cat can calm down some of the vitriol against Islam. I doubt it but I applaud him for performing in the US. I wonder if it will be a mix of old and new music? I can’t imagine all the BS and news spin that will happen because of this. We don’t all agree with the stuff that the media puts out… ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/4 "2014-09-17T09:34:57Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > he is clearly a pacifist… umm… not everybody [thinks it’s so clear](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens%27_comments_about_Salman_Rushdie): > [@](#): > > Interviewer Robertson: You don’t think that this man deserves to die? > Y. Islam: Who, Salman Rushdie? > Robertson: Yes. > Y. Islam: Yes, yes. > Robertson: And do you have a duty to be his executioner? > Y. Islam: Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act – perhaps, yes. > [Some minutes later, Robertson on the subject of a protest where an effigy of the author is to be burned] > Robertson: Would you be part of that protest, Yusuf Islam, would you go to a demonstration where you knew that an effigy was going to be burned? > Y. Islam: I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing Since then, he has waffled and backtracked a lot, and claimed he was misunderstood. But Salmon Rushdie, who I think knows a thing or two about fatwas and muslim extremism has said: > [@](#): > > “If he [Cat Stevens] is a “good Muslim” like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar then I’m the Great Pumpkin.” [cite](http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/49349/rushdie-calls-stewart-out-on-yusuf-islam) My suggestion: he should go on tour as Cat Stevens, not Yusaf Islam. Play his old songs that everybody loves , and re-create Cat Stevens on stage. That’s what people are nostalgic for, and want to pay for. Because , damn, those songs were good. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/5 "2014-09-17T14:57:43Z")
He can go to hell as far as I’m concerned, over the Rushdie comments. I’d never go see him. I even feel guilty when Cat Stevens songs come up in iTunes rotation. (But not THAT guilty - they are good songs, after all. I like _Stranglehold_, too. Yeah, that’s a concert I’d see, Ted Nugent opening for Cat Stevens!) ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/6 "2014-09-17T16:49:46Z")
Wasn’t he disallowed admittance to the US? And didn’t he fake cancer? Whatever. Like others have said… I would go see Cat Stevens, but I don’t think I want to see Yussef. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/7 "2014-09-17T16:57:59Z")
He was on Colbert, just a few years ago (as Yusaf Islam, I think). The remarkable thing was that, although he was playing new material, he still sounded _exactly_ like Cat Stevens from the '60s and '70s. ---
**Author:** ![Boggette](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@Boggette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boggette)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/8 "2014-09-17T17:17:22Z")
He and Ozzy were at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in DC in 2010 when I went. > **[Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally_to_Restore_Sanity_and/or_Fear)** > > The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was a gathering that took place on October 30, 2010, at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The rally was led by Jon Stewart, host of the satirical news program The Daily Show, and Stephen Colbert, in-character as a conservative political pundit, as on his program The Colbert Report, both then seen on Comedy Central. About 215,000 people attended the rally, according to aerial photography analysis by AirPhotosLive.com for CBS News. > The rally was a com... I was kinda fun watching them war over Peace Train or Crazy Train. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2014, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/9 "2014-09-17T19:01:16Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > He can go to hell as far as I’m concerned, over the Rushdie comments. I’d never go see him. > > I even feel guilty when Cat Stevens songs come up in iTunes rotation. (But not THAT guilty - they are good songs, after all. I like _Stranglehold_, too. Yeah, that’s a concert I’d see, Ted Nugent opening for Cat Stevens!) Well, everyone makes mistakes. I’d have more respect for him if he actually admitted a mistake, even granting that the interview may not have revealed how he actually felt (they often don’t). And yeah, such great music. ---
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/10 "2014-09-18T02:52:17Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > He can go to hell as far as I’m concerned, over the Rushdie comments. I’d never go see him. I agree. I have zero respect for him and even though he made some good music, I no longer will listen to it. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cat-stevens-to-go-on-tour/698709/11 "2014-09-18T18:33:38Z")
> [@Boggette](#): > > He and Ozzy were at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in DC in 2010 when I went. > > [Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally_to_Restore_Sanity_and/or_Fear) > > I was kinda fun watching them war over Peace Train or Crazy Train. 😉 That was my favorite part of the event!