Ever since its inception in 1993, Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival has consistently delivered line-ups not replicated in any other Summer Festival. Be-fitting the year in which Southbank Centre celebrates the 60th Anniversary of Festival of Britain with MasterCard, Ray Davies’ Meltdown line-up confirmed so far features musicians, comedians, composers, poets and filmmakers from across the decades since the Royal Festival Hall was built in 1951.
Highlights include Royal Festival Hall performances by Ray Davies himself; a re-creation of iconic 1960s TV show Ready Steady Go!; The Fugs’ first London show since 1968; Monty Pythons Terry Jones and Michael Palin in conversation; gigs by artists who came to the fore in the 1970s, 80s and 90s including Nick Lowe, Madness and Yo La Tengo; performance poetry from Roger McGough and John Cooper-Clarke and talks by some key figures of British popular culture including Peter Asher, Michael Eavis and Julien Temple.
Ray Davies will open and close the Festival with performances of Kinks songs and solo material that make him one of the most respected and covered songwriters of all time, first with his band (Royal Festival Hall, Friday 10 June) and then with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Crouch End Festival Chorus (Royal Festival Hall, Sunday 19 June). Saturday 11 June sees a re-creation of 1960s British TV pop show Ready Steady Go!, a pioneering music programme that featured legendary performances from The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Dusty Springfield as well as many appearances by The Kinks.
This special Meltdown edition includes original stars from the era alongside contemporary artists specially chosen by the show’s director, legendary TV producer and Dusty’s manager Vicki Wickham. The line up for Ready Steady Go! will be announced shortly and tickets for this event will go on sale in April.
Also, from the decade that saw The Kinks rip up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, will be US proto-punk contemporaries The Fugs (Queen Elizabeth Hall, Saturday 11 June) – who last performed in London in 1968 – and The Sonics (Royal Festival Hall, Saturday 18 June). The latter appear in an incendiary double bill with art-punk innovators Wire – choices that reveal a raw, confrontational attitude in evidence in Davies’ work right from the urgent, opening riff of The Kinks’ ‘All Day and All of the Night‘.
Counter-culture legend and DJ Arthur Brown appears in a mind-bending double bill with cult neo-psychedelicists The Legendary Pink Dots (Queen Elizabeth Hall, Friday 10 June). On Tuesday 14 June, former Animals keyboard wizard performs as the Alan Price Set in the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Now you can win tickets to one of the stand-out bookings of this year’s festival, Yo La Tengo. To enter this exclusive Live4ever competition, simply follow this link to our Facebook page and leave a quick comment. One lucky winner will receive a pair of tickets for the show at London’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday, June 12th. Good luck!