News, musings and whatever you are having yourself about festivals in Ireland, the UK and Europe (a bit).
Band of Horses have been confirmed as headliners for Black Deer festival. Also announced to headline the festival over the weekend are John Butler Trio and Jade Bird. Black Deer takes place in Eridge Park, Kent from 21-23 June, 2019.
Black Deer is the award winning, new kid on the block in festival land.
Tickets are on sale at blackdeerfestival.com
The Pinkpop festival organisers have made their second announcement and its a curious one. Mumford & Sons, George Ezra (so far so normal) and Tenacious D.
You may have been wondering whether Tenacious D were still alive or certainly whether they were still on the go. Closer investigation identified that Tenacious D have a new album, their fourth, out this year, Post Apocalypto. The new album is not a huge leap forward, with catchy titles such as Cave Woman and Fuck Yo Yo Ma, and did best in central Europe. That said, with the right crowd and a few drinks this could be great fun.
This is the 50th anniversary of Pinkpop. Fleetwood Mac were confirmed as headliners a few weeks back. Tickets for the Dutch festival are on sale in March, through ticketmaster.nl
PinkPop takes place the weekend of 8 -10 June in Landgraaf in the Netherlands.
PS… On second thoughts, I lashed on the new album, maybe not for me.
I have been blathering on about Electric Castle being great value for money for a few months now. They have announced a chunk of their line up and my position stands, this is definitely worth a look.
Florence and the Machine, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Bring Me Horizone, The Vaccines, Soffi Tukker and Kronos Quartet are among the first to be announced for this Romanian festival. The festival runs from 17-21 July.
Tickets for the festival are afrom bout 85 euro up until December 20th. There are some add ons that you may want to purchase, but this is still a great deal.
Tickets available from here.
Indiependence has announced the first to headliners for the August Bank Holiday weekend. Bastille and Biffy Clyro are the opening headliners for the Cork event.
Bastille last played Indie in 2013. This will be the first trip to the Cork venue for Scottish Rockers Biffy Clyro. Biffy have headlined some major festivals in the past, so this is a major coup for Indiependence, a great way to celebrate their tenth year. The festival has grown from 3000 to 15000 in that time.
Check out updates at www.indiependencefestival.com
Like many other music lovers, I was stopped in my tracks last night with the news of John Reynolds sudden passing. At 52 he was a relatively young man with a great future still ahead of him.
Ireland’s concert-going community know the debt we owe to John Reynolds. He changed everything. The arrival of Electric Picnic in 2004 not only brought choice to festival goers, it also brought a whole new level of experience. This was not just a music festival, but a music and arts festival. Quite a few people at the time were scratching their head as to what that might mean. It meant an entirely new way of running a festival.
While Reynolds would ultimately lose control of Electric Picnic, his legacy would continue in all Irish festivals. The launch of All Together Now in 2018 was a clear attempt to recreate the initial atmosphere of Electric Picnic as a smaller, boutique festival. Just as the Picnic had been formed as an alternative to the behemoth that was Oxegen, All Together Now was aimed at a section of the market that Reynolds believed had been left behind as Electric Picnic had expanded. The first All Together Now was, according to punters, a huge success.
Body and Soul, which has grown into one Ireland’s best festivals gained much of its fame from inclusion in the Electric Picnic line up. It is hard to imagine that Body and Soul would have grown to what it is without Reynold’s influence.
This weekend coming will see the fourth running of Metropolis, another of Reynold’s innovations. The show, which is being headlined by Villagers should be a tribute to a man who has given a huge amount to Irish audiences.
There is an Irish saying which is used in moments such as this, ‘ni bheidh a leitheid aris ann.’ It translates as, never will we see his like again.
Here is an RTE archive report in advance of the first Electric Picnic, including a brief segment with John Reynolds
Rock en Seine has announced their first headliner and the launch date for ticket sales. The Cure, who are firing out confirmations like confetti have been confirmed for the Paris (west of Paris) festival. Rock en Seine will take place on 23, 24 and 25 August 2019.
Tickets for the event go on sale on Novemeber 7th. No word on pricing yet.
Hurricane Festival, which will take place near Bremen from June 21 – 23, has splurged and announced all its headliners in one go. Mental behaviour in this era of drip drip announcements.
The German festival has announced Foo Fighters, Mumford and Sons, Die Toten Hosen and The Cure.
In addition to this impressive list, they have also announced:
AnnenMayKantereit, Bilderbuch, Papa Roach, Bosse, Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls, Enter Shikari, The Wombats, 257ers, Trettmann, The Streets, Bausa, Ufo361, Die Orsons, Muff Potter, OK Kid, Fünf Sterne Deluxe, Yung Hurn, Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, Teesy, Schmutzki, Montreal
Not bad oder nicht schlecht, depending on what you’re having yourself.
Tickets here
The UK Festival Awards will take place in December, in a no doubt very lavish ceremony, that neither you nor I will be invited to. The awards are in their 15th year and offer recognition for the hard work that goes in to running the festivals that we know and love or indeed know and hate.
The 2017 awards included the following winners;
| Award | 2017 Winner |
| Best Festival Production | Lost Village |
| Best Metropolitan Festival* | Slam Dunk |
| Best New Festival* | Trnsmt |
| Best Festival for Emerging Talent | Dot to Dot Festival |
| Best Grassroots Festival* | 2000 Trees |
| Best Overseas Festival* | Outlook Festival |
| Best Family Festival | Camp Bestival |
| Best Non Music Festival | Bournemouth 7s |
| Best Small Festival* | Lost Village |
| Best Medium Sized Festival* | End of the Road |
| Best Large Festival* | Latitude |
| Line up of the Year | Liverpool Music Week |
Organisers are looking for the ordinary man and woman in the street to have their say. While the more technical awards are adjudicated by a panel of experts, the public get to determine the shortlist for some of the major awards. Once shortlisted, the industry boffins then pick the winners.
It’s easy to say that awards don’t matter but screw that. As punters we often complain we dont get a chance to have our say, well this is part of having our say. So get out there and vote.
You can vote for your favourites here.
Ultra is a bit of a monster when you think about it. Its a monster in a few senses. First of all, the Ultra festival phenomenon is now running in 20 countries. Secondly, Ultra Europe, has expanded to essentially being a week long festival of hedonism. Thats a lot of partying to be partied.
The Ultra Europe festival is held in Croatia on July 12 -14. The main festival element is in Split. It is part of the Destination Ultra event which lasts seven days. The larger event encompasses opening party, boat parties, closing party and top acts the whole way through. Essentially this is a party.
Last years line up included Alesso, The Martinez Brothers, Eric Prydz, Axwell Λ Ingrosso, Marshmallo, Hardwell and David Guetta and a bucketload more.
Registration for tickets is now open. You need to register to get the best value tickets. There are many ticket options, reflecting the choice of events over the week. It is a little confusing, but in fairness these people offer choice and value (based on previous line ups).
Register for tickets here
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