Arctic Monkeys by Zackery Michael
Glastonbury completing the headliners for 2023 and De La Soul‘s long-awaited arrival on streaming services are among the biggest headlines we featured during the past week.
Arctic Monkeys and Guns N Roses have been confirmed to be joining Elton John as headliners for this year’s Glastonbury Festival.
Others announced on the line-up include Lizzo, Christine And The Queens, Lil Nas X, The War On Drugs, Loyle Carner, Rina Sawayama and Lana Del Rey, but with all eyes as ever on the main Pyramid Stage acts, co-organiser Emily Eavis has perhaps tellingly already been defending a trio which looks safe at best.
“They’ll be brilliant and provide something totally different to the rest of the headliners,” Eavis told The Guardian of Guns N Roses’ booking.
Yard Act, Arlo Parks and Rina Sawayama are among the over 80 new artists to have been confirmed for the August Bank Holiday Weekend at Reading and Leeds.
For Yard Act, it’s yet another live booking for their 2022 debut album The Overload after the ridiculously busy schedule last year was concluded with a sold-out hometown show at Leeds’ O2 Academy.
“They begin quite simply as a loud, bloody good rock band, Shjipstone absolutely shredding his way through openers Pour Another and Dead Horse,” our review reads.
Pulp have announced the death of their bass player Steve Mackey.
“Our beloved friend & bass player Steve Mackey passed away this morning,” a post on the band’s social media pages reads. “Our thoughts are with his family & loved ones.”
“This photo of Steve dates from when Pulp were on tour in South America in 2012. We had a day off and Steve suggested we go climbing in the Andes. So we did and it was a completely magical experience.”
34 years to the day since the release of their classic debut album 3 Feet High And Rising, De La Soul‘s entire back catalogue was finally available for streaming and online markets.
The group’s iconic sampling has proved to be a difficult fit for the modern digital world, but with these issues now resolved the music is there for a whole new generation right at a bittersweet time for one of the true greats of hip hop’s golden age.
“We are excited to finally have our full back catalog available on all streaming platforms,” Posdnuos aka Kelvin Mercer has said.
Green Man Festival has hit the ground running once again with the likes of Young Fathers, First Aid Kit, The Walkmen, Spiritualized, Confidence Man, Goat, Squid and Snail Mail all among the first wave of confirmed artists.
Young Fathers are booked not long after the release of their new album Heavy Heavy; one which, ‘leaves a lot of meaning to the beholder‘, according to our review:
“Fears are buried deeper but also still there on the exuberant opener Rice, on which there’s almost too many ideas vying for airtime; underneath its many threads the words sow caution against damaging a planet for which the clock is ticking inexorably.”
As his six-date pub tour continued, slowthai announced more UK live dates for September.
Those will start at the Glasgow Barrowlands and are part of a wider European tour which is to also visit Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels that month.
All this is in support of Tyler Frampton’s forthcoming UGLY LP: ‘…me trying to emulate the spirit of the brotherhood ethos that bands have’, he’s said.
