Looking for the latest lineup, date, ticket information or latest news about your favourite festivals, look no further. Summer Festival Guide’s Festival News section covers all your needs!
Three Music Stages, the Main Stage, the Guildhall Stage for emerging talent and the Academy Stage for talented young artists. SportBeat are excited to announce that Razorlight are to headline, on Sunday, at this years Festival! Also confirmed are The Hoosiers, Reverend & the Makers, The Ordinary Boys, By the Rivers, Lucy Spraggan, The Struts, Menswe@r, Matt Cardle, Big Sixes, Shy Nature, Isaiah Dreads & George Barnett.
The Sportbeat Festival is part of the BIG (Believe in Gloucester) campaign and last year won the BIG ‘Community Event of the Year Award 2013’, a great achievement in the Festival’s inaugural year.
After she was forced to pull out from last year’s event, WOMAD are delighted to announce that Alice Russell, one of the UK’s greatest soul singers of this – or any other – time, will be treading the festival’s boards this summer, offering an excellent opportunity to witness a woman whose vocal range is matched by the gamut of emotions that underpin her performances. Also from these shores, Nitin Sawhney ONEZERO is the live incarnation of the polymath’s ONEZERO album, a cut-straight-to-vinyl retrospective that revisited key moments from his extensive back catalogue.
Jetting in from the other side of the planet are evergreen WOMAD favourites Fat Freddy’s Drop, the seven-piece New Zealand crew whose heady brew of dub and soul (plus a smidgeon of techno) never fails to fire the festival vibe. Another multi-membered band flying in – albeit from the somewhat closer Balkans – is Goran Bregovic whose Wedding & Funeral Orchestra marry their leader’s rock-star past with the exuberance of the gypsy brass band tradition.
Africa, of course, is always well represented at WOMAD – and Mali, in particular. Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni ba represent the musically rich country this year. Having graduated from Toumani Diabate’s band to become a star in his own right, Bassekou is the world’s most celebrated player of the ngoni, the ancient harp lute of West Africa. From the other side of the continent comes the mighty Mulatu Astatke. If you’ve ever cupped an ear in the direction of the Ethiopiques reissue series (or to the soundtrack of Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers), you’ll be familiar with this bandleader/composer’s lithe and sensual Ethio-jazz. Mulatu’s performance promises to be a very special one indeed.
Another venerable elder statesman from the top table of African music makes a hugely welcome return to the WOMAD stage when Oliver Mtukudzi – and his excellent band The Black Spirits – remind us of what a joyful sound those shimmering Zimbabwean guitars can be. Also returning to Charlton Park is the Norwegian singer Mari Boine who melds elements of folk, rock and jazz to joik, the traditional music of her Sami homeland. Mari’s records have previously been released on the Real World label, WOMAD’s sister organisation; new Real World signings The Gloaming are also Wiltshire-bound, a five-strong folk super-group that, in the words ofThe New Yorker, “moves the music of Ireland in captivating new directions”.
Once again, this summer’s festival includes some intriguing new, transnational collaborations. These include the mouthwatering partnership between Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca and Malian songbirdFatoumata Diawara that aims to explore shared traditions, despite their respective homelands being divided by the Atlantic Ocean. Another attractive teaming-up features former Carolina Chocolate Drops songsterDom Flemons and Martin Simpson, one of the finest folk and blues guitarists these shores have ever produced. Both are impeccable players, making this collaboration a must-see.
Of course, WOMAD’s reputation isn’t just built on shipping over an unending stream of world-famous artists. Every WOMAD event is fuelled by the spirit of discovery, by encountering performers previously unknown and unheard. Accordingly, the headline acts of future years could be found among the likes of…
Kobo Town (Trinidad/Canada) Delightful modern-day calypso from Port of Spain (via Toronto) and underpinned by roots-reggae rhythm and brass.
Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat (Iran) Women singers from Iran are hen’s-teeth-rare, making the intertwining, undulating twin voices of these two sisters from Tehran an important inclusion on this year’s bill.
Anna Cinzia Villani & MacuranOrchestra (Italy) From the heel of Italy – and performing in the pizzica pizzica style – comes this soulful singer who’s every inch the equal of your favourite fado singer.
Ibibio Sound Machine (UK/Nigeria) Fronted by female singer Eno Williams, this project is a brilliant fusion of West African funk and disco and to-the-minute electro.
Magic Drum Orchestra (UK) The drum is everything for this 20-piece percussion collective, delivering samba, Afrobeat, dubstep and almost everything in between.
Nuru Kane (Senegal) Wide-reaching Senegalese troubadour whose one-world vibe is seasoned with plenty of strong North African flavours.
The Good Ones (Rwanda) Genocide-surviving trio whose music is as powerful as their story. “The raw, emotional results are undeniably impressive,” says Mojo magazine.
Salim-Sulaiman with Karsh Kale (India) Bollywood musical directors and siblings Salim and Sulaiman Merchant join forces with Asian Underground pioneer Karsh Kale to create an epic, widescreen soundscape.
Ethiopian jazz, British soul, Kiwi dub, Balkans brass…. This is just the start. Over the coming weeks, dozens more artists will be unveiled as the line-up of one of the red-letter weekends of the British summer takes shape. And, believe us, it promises to be a classic.
Ringmaster in chief Rob da Bank says: “De La Soul have soundtracked my life for the past 25 years since the dayglo hippy daisy age glory of 3 Feet High and Rising first found its way onto my first plastic turntable. I’ve seen them loads of times since then and they are just one of the best party acts imaginable. Camp Bestival is gonna be a very, very fun place on Saturday night!”
Saturday, it's a Saturday, Saturday, it's a Saturday! Yes, yes! Daisy age hip-hop kings De La Soul are coming to Camp Bestival to headline Saturday night. One of the most popular bands from the golden age of hip-hop, De La Soul’s all-out, sample-tastic treats are guaranteed party starters. From The Magic Number and Me, Myself & I to A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’ and Stakes Is High, Posdnuos, Trugoy the Dove and Maseo deliver the good vibes by the bucket load and we can’t wait to dance to this fix and flex every muscle!
This years Brit Award winner Ellie Goulding will headline the Jersey Live Festival and follows in the footsteps of previous headliners, The Prodigy, Paul Weller, Fatboy Slim, Kasabian & Snow Patrol.
With five UK top five singles to add to her list of achievements, she comes to Jersey Live as a true star, and is an artist with a genuine depth to her creative output. Her inspirations are diverse with intrepid artists such as Bjork, Imogen Heap, Lauryn Hill, Joni Hill and Kanye West adding to the melting pot of her influences, her style is one that perfectly fuses electronica with her folk roots and her voice is at once exhilarating, sorrowful, childlike and charged with emotion. It’s truly an original one, as the Jersey Live audience will no doubt testify to come August 30th.
This years Sziget Festival expands it lineup to inlclude festival favourites The Prodigy, pop singer Lily Allen, La Roux, Miles Kane, Palma Violets, Kavinsky, Fink, and Jagwar Ma.
They join the already announced Queens of the Stone Age, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Skrillex, Placebo, Klaxons, Stromae, Calvin Harris, Imagine Dragons, & Bastille at the summer festival which takes place in Budapest, Hungary.
The Prodigy is a must-have star for any festival main stage, after 25 million sold albums and an amazing popularity through the years. Probably the most successful British electronic formation is once again performing at Sziget. Young, energetic, extravagant pop singer, Lily Allen, will also perform at Sziget Festival. She released her newest single last year in November, called “Hard Out Here”, and while she is still working on her third studio album, we already know the name of it ‘Sheezus’.
La Roux and the voice of Elly Jackson is known by all pop music fans. The synth-pop lady and her partner Ben Langmaid, the producer-songwriter-keyboard player, are one of the most popular pop music productions of the 2000s. The popular ska-punk band from Madrid, Ska-P, will also hit the stage of the Island of Freedom. There are few bands that can be so visually stimulating as they are and this year we can check them out with our own eyes at Sziget.
Miles Kane, former frontman of the The Rascals and co-frontman of the Last Shadow of Puppets, is now successfully performing his solo career. He has released two albums so far, the one released last year ‘Don’t forget Who You Are’ was a great success. Simon Green, AKA Bonobo, is an artist very much at the peak of his significant powers. His 2010 album ‘Black Sands’ was the high watermark of his career to date; a masterful record, marrying Green’s inimitable melodic genius to cutting edge electronics, bass and drums.
Palma Violets are one of the most promising post-garage rock bands today. The first single “Best of Friends”, a raucous and exhilarating blast of primal rock’n’roll, was voted NME’s song of the year for 2012. Electronic musician and producer, Vincent Belergey, known as Kavinsky, is one of the most important and creative star of the French electronic scene. His latest album, "Outrun", is received immediately as a success and he started a world live tour called OUTRUN LIVE TOUR and Sziget is a part of it.
Fink is a British singer-songwriter, who is known for his creative lyrics, sophisticated and romantic songs and his charismatic performances. He has released five albums in the last ten years and last time he visited Sziget with his album ‘Perfect Darkness’ two year ago. Jagwar Ma will be a real excitement at the Island of Freedom this year. The Australian trio of Gabriel Winterfield, Jona Ma and Jack Freeman make some kind of psychedelic dance music that mesmerizes the audience.
