Hi folks, we here at GP have one eye on next years musical adventures and have been speculating wildly on festival line-ups and tour dates, so we thought we would put together a little preview package for the next year.
Gigs
A quick look at the confirmed gigs for next year, we already have the makings of a good year for music in Ireland.
January sees Irish dates for Wolfmother, Christy Moore, Henry Rollins, Bryan Adams, Pete Doherty, The Field, Lacuna Coil, Mr Scruff and Vitalic.
February sees Jamie T, Cobra Starship, The Low Anthem, Dusty Kidd, Midlake, Yeasayer, Lady Gaga, Seastick Steve, Air, 30 seconds to mars, God is an Astronaut, Hockey and Machine Head.
March’s highlights are Girls, Two Door Cinema Club, Ocean Colour Scene, Dave Matthews Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Haduken!, Passion Pit, Fionn Regan, Laurent Garnier, Paul van Dyk, Tiesto, Mumford & Sons, 50 cent, Wallis Bird and Kate Walsh
April has Crookers, Airbourne and Efterklang,
May is Pavement, Kiss, Don McLean, Metallica, Rod Stewart, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Pendulum and Randy Newman.
June Snow Patrol, Pearl Jam and Deep Purple
Festivals
With Oxegen and Electric Picnic looking 99.9% certain of returning next year, rumours of who will be headlining either have already begun flying around. It looks fairly certain that Kasabian will be headlining one of the days of Oxegen, and a quick look at who might me touring in support of new material next summer points to big acts like as Greenday,Vampire Weekend and Muse. Keep in Mind that Greenday are favorites to play Slane this year, and may be coupled with acts like Paramore on the bill.
Also traditionally, acts that play Dublin in the earlier months of the year also tend to be on the festival circuit also, so from the acts mentioned above, my bet is that Vitalic, Wolfmother, Mumford & Sons and maybe Tiesto will be playing Oxegen. I’d also expect to see up and coming acts such as Miike Snow, Marina and the Diamonds, Two Door Cinema Club and Beach House playing the big festivals.
As for possible, more offbeat additions, John Lydon’s Public Image Ltd are touring again so could be a EP additions, other stranger additions could be Pavement or maybe Duran Duran.
Other acts may go down the Marley Park/Malahide Castles/Croke Park route, such as Robbie Williams or Snow Patrol where they could charge €60-€80 a ticket.
Regarding the other independent festivals around the country, nothing is set in stone regarding them even going ahead this year, but I feel that peoples disappointment with MCDs running of the two big festivals is making the Irish boutique festival a more attractive option than ever before, I myself was at Castlepalooza and had a great time, a lot must be said for these smaller festivals. Hopefully the aforementioned Castlepalooza, Cork’s Indiependece festival, Cois Farraige and the numerous other smaller local festivals make a return next year.
On the international front, festivals like Sonar, Leeds & Reading, Benicassim and Pukkelpop have become very popular with Irish punters who are looking for more bang for their buck at festivals. Many, including flights, work out cheaper than an Oxegen or EP ticket and may feature the same acts. Glastonbury 2010 celebrates the 40th anniversery of the festival an it has already been announced that U2 will headline the event.
Albums
There are a good few highly anticipated album releases set for next year, including Vampire Weekends, Spoon, Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire, The National, Liars, Eels plus many more, I’m sure making picking an album of the year a bit of a challenge.
This is all just my opinion so feel free to agree or disagree with the above, Think Rihanna will headline Oxegen? Let us know! but judging by the above 2010 will be a great year.
Words by Kev Meagher