Exit upgrades its Fleet

Having already announced The Cure, Sofi Tukker and world No. 1 DJ duo -Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, EXIT Festival has announced another slew of acts.

Flavour of the month and year, Michigan’s Greta Van Fleet have been announced. Greta Van Fleet are having massive success with their debut album Anthem of The Peaceful Army, which has drawn favourable comparison to Led Zeppelin and other rock greats.

Phil Anselmo, frontman of Pantera, Tarja Turunen, Arcturus and Swedish metal act Entombed A.D. have also all been added. Ska act, The Selecter, Punks Peter and the Test Tube Babies and Californian veterans Total Chaos join them on the line up.

EXIT will take place from July 4th to 7th in Novi Sad Serbia. Tickets are on sale here.

Swede Returns to Creamfields

Godfathers of dance, Creamfields have been ruling the roost when it comes to dance music since a bajillion years ago – well since XXXX. Literally everyone who is anyone has played Creamfields down the years.

Over 70,000 people will visit the festival over the weekend. The event takes place on the August Bank Holiday weekend (UK), August 22-25.

Swedish House Mafia have been confirmed as headliners for the event in what will be their only UK show of 2019. Having split up in 2013, the group reformed this year at Ultra Miami. The Creamfields appearance will be their first UK show since 2012, the end of a long wait for their many fans.

Tenacious D still exist……oh and they are playing Pinkpop

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.

Rock Werchter looks hard to beat

Ah, its just very good isn’t it. I mean, come on, you have to give credit. Rock Werchter keep on adding quality to what was an already strong line up. At the back end of last week, the Belgians added Weezer, The 1975, Jungle, Tom Misch, Kurt Vile & The Violaters, Macklemore, Clean Bandit and Two Door Cinema Club.

The organisers also gave an idea how the individual days were shaping up. Oh boy, how they are shaping up.

Thursday 27 June	Friday 28 June	Saturday 29 June	Sunday 30 June
P!NK	Tool	Mumford & Sons	Muse
Paul Kalkbrenner	The Cure	Florence + the Machine	Underworld
Vance Joy	Bring Me The Horizon	Macklemore	Yungblud
Bang Bang Romeo	Kylie	THE BLAZE
	The 1975	Clean Bandit
	Weezer	Miles Kane
	Years & Years	Two Door Cinema Club
	Jungle
	Tom Misch
	Nothing But Thieves
	Kurt Vile & The Violators

So, with this much unveiled surely now you are happy to part with your hard earned wedge and to commit to a short flight to Belgium.

Ticket options can be found here.

The 1975, Foos, Post Malone and Twenty One Pilots headline Leeds and Reading

Glastonbury aside Leeds and Reading are now established as the biggest festival weekend of the year in the UK. A younger crowd, with more focus on what is current than Glasto, these festivals are monsters.

Little surprise so that the headliners are monsters too. The two headed beast, which shall be called Realeeds, announced four headliners and another 20 or so undercard acts today. Here is the breakdown, helpfully by day.

Tickets are on sale on Friday through Ticketmaster.

Robots invade Jodrell Bank

Bluedot is one of the more interesting festivals on the go. Located at Jodrell Bank, the home of a gigantic space observatory, Bluedot has a slightly spacey feel to it. The festival is named after Pale Blue Dot, a famous photograph of planet Earth taken from the Voyager 1 spacecraft and popularised in a book by Carl Sagan In addition to music, there are live science experiments, expert talks and other such clever stuff.

Organisers will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in 2019. Who better to announce as first headline than the grandfathers of synthfuturism, Kraftwerk. The German veterans will bring their 3-D experience to Jodrell over the weekend of 18 – 21 July.

Bluedot has had rave reviews since starting in 2016. Previous headliners have included The Chemical Brothers, Flaming Lips, Orbital, Pixies and Gary Numan. Attendance is pretty small, only 5,000 per day.

Tickets are available from tomorrow at this page.

Electric Castle – To the manor born for Florence

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.

Bastille day in Cork

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.

Organisers are promising an improved VIP area and a larger camping space. These build on improvements in previous years. Tickets cost €139 and are on sale now. They will go up to €149 in January.

Check out updates at www.indiependencefestival.com

Rock Werchter filling out nicely

Rock Werchter have announced a bucket loat of new acts, joining an already orgasmic list. The new acts are: Bring Me The Horizon, Kylie, Paul Kalkenbrenner, Years & Years, THE BLAZE, Miles Kane, Nothing But Thieves, Vance Joy, Yungblud and Bang Bang Romeo.

These new acts join, P!NK, Tool, The Cure, Mumford & Sons, Florence & The Machine and Muse. In terms of announcements, Rock Werchter is well ahead of most other European festivals. More acts are promised soon.

Rock Werchter takes place from 27th to 30th June in Werchter, Belgium. Tickets are on sale from here.

I see your true Colours….. of Ostrava

Colours of Ostrava is one of the biggest music festivals in Central Europe. On the go since 2002, it is also one of the longest established of Europes festivals. Ostrava, is the third biggest city in the Czech Republic. With twenty stages, Colours features music from all over the world.

Florence and the Machine has joined The Cure as the first two headliners for the festival. Both acts look set to have a busy festival summer. Colours will take place from the 17th to 20th of July. Tickets are available from here.