Weekly News Round-Up: Paul Weller, The Libertines and more

You’re in the right place if you’ve missed any of the week’s top news stories – here Live4ever’s Weekly News Round-Up presents a recap of ten of the biggest headlines in British music we featured during the last seven days.

Paul Weller live in London (Photo: Alberto Pezzali for Live4ever Media)

Paul Weller and The Prodigy have been announced as the headliners for this year’s Victorious Festival.

They join the previously confirmed Libertines at Southsea Seafront in Portsmouth between August 24th-26th, as do the likes of Friendly Fires, Everything Everything and Happy Mondays.

Noel Gallagher lent heavily on his most recent solo album Who Built The Moon? as his 2018 world tour began in Detroit last week.

Opening with a live version of Fort Knox, the High Flying Birds went on to air Holy Mountain, Keep On Reaching, It’s A Beautiful World, She Taught Me How To Fly, Be Careful What You Wish For, Black & White Sunshine and Dead In The Water from the 2017 record, whilst also performing settled solo favourites such as Ballad Of The Mighty I and If I Had A Gun.

The Manic Street Preachers have posted an acoustic, ‘Bluer Skies’ version of their new single International Blue.

The track is doing the ground work for the band’s latest studio album Resistance Is Futile, which is out on April 6th.

Alt-J will tour North America in April and June.

Crowded around high profile festival gigs at Coachella and Bonnaroo are headline outings which include the previously confirmed date at the Forest Hills Stadium in New York on June 15th.

The Undertones’ Damien O’Neill and Mickey Bradley have been enlisted on backing vocals on the new Ash single Buzzkill.

This track comes with news of a new album from the band entitled Islands, whose release on May 18th will see them returning to Infectious Music. “The day I wrote Buzzkill, it took me a while to stop laughing cos it’s so fun, dumb and full of unnecessary swearing,” Tim Wheeler remembers.

The Libertines live in Manchester, January 2016 (Photo: Gary Mather for Live4ever Media)

The Y Not festival will be headlined by The Libertines, Catfish & The Bottlemen and Jamiroquai when it moves to Aston Hill Farm in Derbyshire later this year.

The event is making the short journey after its final day was cancelled in 2017 amidst severe weather and claims of a lack of preparation.

Idles now have a full UK tour coming up in April.

Added to the already sold-out, biggest headline gigs of their career so far in Manchester and London are appearances in Bath, Plymouth, Southend, Ramsgate, Milton Keynes, Coventry and Blackpool, these following a trip to the US next month.

Robert Smith will be curating this year’s Meltdown Festival.

The Cure frontman follows the lead of David Bowie, Yoko Ono, David Byrne and others in taking charge of the event which is to be held across the London Southbank complex, taking in the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and The Hayward, between June 15th-24th. “I am honoured and excited to be curating the 25th Meltdown,” Smith said.

Citadel has landed a bit of a coup in securing Tame Impala for a UK-exclusive headline festival appearance.

The event is moving from Victoria Park in London to the city’s Gunnersbury Park this year, and Kevin Parker is confirmed at the top of the tree for July 15th.

Shame have added another round of UK tour dates to their plans for this year’s stunning debut album Songs Of Praise.

With a spring run already arranged and ready to kick-off on April 4th in Cardiff, the band have now detailed a November leg which will take them to cities including Leeds, Glasgow and Oxford before a final night at the O2 Forum in London.