Monday, April 28, 2008

Dance/Lock Up Stages announced

Acts have been announced for the Dance and Lock Up stages at Reading/Leeds. The Dance Stage (Sunday) will host: CSS, Digitalism, Simian Mobile Disco, Chromeo, Crystal Castles, Lethal Bizzle, Holy Fuck, The Whip, Robots In Disguise, The Death Set, The Shoes

The Lock Up Stage again runs for two days (Friday and Saturday at Reading) and sees appearances by:
Friday:
Less Than Jake, Pennywise, Goldfinger, The Unseen, H2O, Frank Turner, The Loved Ones, Hexes

Saturday:
Gallows, Alkaline Trio, Thrice, Flogging Molly, MXPX, Cancer Bats, Set Your Goals, The King Blues, Fucked Up, The Gaslight Anthem, Random Hand

The Radio 1 stage has the following additions:
Friday:
Jack Penate, One Night Only, The Duke Spirit, Be Your Own Pet, Blood Red Shoes, Make Model

Saturday:
Seasick Steve, The Ting Tings, The Mystery Jets, Santogold, Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong, Kids In Glass Houses, Bombay Bicycle Club

Sunday:
The Music, hadouken!, Lightspeed Champion, Cajun Dance Party, Adam Green, Yeasayer, The Metros.

Finally, added to the Main Stage bill are:
British Sea Power, The Automatic, Alexisonfire

All of which leaves plenty of time to go to the pub.

Here's the line-up poster:

Monday, April 14, 2008

Noel Gallagher slams Jay-Z Glasto headline slot

Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher has slated the decision to book Jay-Z as a headliner at Glastonbury, claiming the decision is the cause of slow ticket sales for this year's festival. The singer said "If it ain't broke don't fix it," he said. "If you start to break it then people aren't going to go. I'm sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance. Glastonbury has a tradition of guitar music and even when they throw the odd curve ball in on a Sunday night you go 'Kylie Minogue?' I don't know about it. But I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong."

However, a more likely cause is that there are simply so many festivals these days that music fans are spoilt for choice. And Glastonbury is getting so big now that over-crowding could be part of the problem. One artist seems unlikely to be the cause of people not buying tickets - with several hundred act to choose from you can always see someone else, rather than the main stage headliner.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Free Metallica Donington download

Over at www.livemetallica.com you can download Metallica's 1985 Donington Monsters Of Rock set free of charge. It's free to sign up at the site and there's a good selection of free downloads from 1982-2003. Here's the full list of freebies:

10/18/1982 Old Waldorf, San Francisco, CA
12/18/1983 Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH
12/20/1984 Lyceum, London, UK
3/15/1985 Kabuki Theater, San Francisco, CA
8/17/1985 Donington Park, Donington, UK
5/24/1986 Arena Building, Cape Girardeau, MO
7/29/1986 UTC Arena, Chattanooga, TN
9/21/1986 Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK
2/13/1987 Frolundaborg, Gothenburg, SWE
2/3/1989 Erwin Events Center, Austin, TX
7/18/1992 Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
6/17/1994 County Fairgrounds, Middletown, NY
8/23/1995 London Astoria II, London, UK
10/6/1996 NEC, Birmingham, UK
12/21/1996 Great Western Forum, Los Angeles, CA
7/8/1998 Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, OH
7/19/1998 Great Woods Center, Mansfield, MA
5/21/1999 Frankenstadion, Nurnberg, GER
7/13/2003 Citrus Bowl, Orlando, FL

Additionally, you can buy many shows from recent tours - sadly the band's Reading Festival appearances are absent, but their Donington 2006 show IS available.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Reading/Leeds headliners

The headliners for this year's Reading/Leeds Festival will be:

Rage Against The Machine (Reading Friday/Leeds Saturday)
The Killers (Reading Saturday/Leeds Sunday)
Metallica (Reading Sunday/Leeds Friday).

The full line-up anounced so far is:

(Reading Friday/Leeds Saturday)
Rage Against The Machine, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Fratellis, The Enemy, Biffy Clyro, Serj Tankian, Dizzee Rascal, Taking Back Sunday, Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly, and Anti-Flag.

(Reading Saturday/Leeds Sunday)
The Killers, Bloc Party, The Raconteurs, Editors, We Are Scientists, Dirty Pretty Things, and The Subways.

(Reading Sunday/Leeds Friday)
Metallica, Tenacious D, Slipknot, Feeder, Avenged Sevenfold, and Dropkick Murphys.

Radio 1/NME Stage
(Reading Friday/Leeds Saturday)
A special co-headline between Babyshambles, and The Wombats, and also appearing Vampire Weekend, and MGMT.

(Reading Saturday/Leeds Sunday)
Manic Street Preachers, Bullet For My Valentine, Justice, and Foals.

(Reading Sunday/Leeds Friday)
The Cribs, Conor Oberst, and Pendulum.

Tickets appear to be sold out at the moment, but there will be returns/further releases nearer the time, so don't panic.