March 24th, 2010

As one of last year’s biggest success stories, The Boxer Rebellion were one of the most talked about bands at the 2010 SXSW festival. The group hit the headlines in January 2009 when their excellent second record topped the US iTunes Alternative chart, but that was by no means the full story. If you missed it, after being dropped by their label following the release of their debut in 2005, the band returned with the self-funded album ‘Union‘ and had their single ‘Evacuate‘ picked as iTunes’ first ever Global Single Of The Week. In another first, ‘Union’ then became the first digital-only LP from an unsigned band to break into the Billboard Top 100. Tracks like ‘Flashing Red Light Means Go‘, ‘The Gospel Of Goro Adachi‘ and the amazing highlight ‘Soviets‘ made it not only one of the most notorious albums of 2009, but one of the best.

John Lennon’s native city Liverpool is to mark what would have been the legendary songwriter’s 70th birthday with a two month festival from October 9th.