Lollapalooza 2008 kicked off today in Chicago's Grant Park. The event set for this weekend (August 1-3) features dozens of top indie artists and bands is expected to sell out of tickets, especially the high-priced three-day pass.

Friday's Lollapalooza 2008 line-up includes popular indie bands like Bloc Party, The Raconteurs, The Kills, Mates of State, Rogue Wave, Holy Fuk, Yeasayer, Gogol Bordello and Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks.For reasons unknown to IRC, Radiohead is not being webcasted during what is expected to be a nearly three-hour set.

Other artists performing on Friday (but not via the webcast) include Black Keys, The Black Lips, Cat Power, VHS or BETA, The Cool Kids, Manchester Orchestra, Louis XIV, Enemy UK, CSS and more.

If you've forgiven AT&T Blue Room for censoring Eddie Vedder (who called out Bush's ruinationof the world) at last year's Lollapalooza, then you can watch performances throughoutthe weekend (provided you have a beefy Internet connection and fast computer - and that AT&T has enough pipes set-up).

Saturday's Lolla line-up for the AT&T webcast includes The Gutter Twins, The Go! Team, DeVotchka,Explosions in the Sky, Broken Social Scene and Wilco. On Sunday, you can watch The Whigs, Office,G Love & Special Sauce, Blues Traveler, John Bulter Trio, Flogging Molly, Love and Rockets, The National.

Not featured on the Blue Room on Saturday are bands like Okkervil River, Battles, Brand New and for the hard rock fans, Rage Against the Machine. Sunday's Lollapalooza line-up also features The Weakerthans, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Iron & Wine, Nine Inch Nails, Love and Rockets and Kayne West.

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals, Lollapalooza

Norway's Hove Festival was held a few weeks ago featuring a powerful three-day line-up of musical acts, including Panic at the Disco, Beck, Foals, The Kooks, MGMT (formerly Management), The Raconteurs, and a rare performance by indie rock legends the Brian Jonestown Massacre (photo, above).

The BJM, who were featured with The Dandy Warhols in the compelling rockumentary film, DiG!, was, by all accounts, and considering a history of brawling and drug and alcohol abuse, awesome. This is how you want to see BJM in concert.

Beck performing at Norway's Hove Festival 2008
Other favorite rock and indie artists and bands at the 2008 Hove Festival included Yeasayer, Foals, Flogging Molly, Les Savy Fav, The Cool Kids, Stars, Dinosaur Jr., Paramore, The Go Team and a dozen others. Access the full video playlist.

We've all seen enough low-quality, hand-held videos of music concerts and festivals on YouTube and other popular social media networks. But it is rare to find high-quality video and audio, not to mention full sets, from some of indie's biggest groups and artists for free.

The videos are hosted by NRKP3 in Norway. There is no information listed about how long the shows, complete with thrilling crowd shots, roaming camera cranes and top-notch production, will be available for unlimited, free viewing. See 'em while you can.

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals, Hove Festival

Interestingly enough, despite a sagging economy, high fuel prices and saturation of big, outdoor music festivals spanning two to five days in duration, the fact is that ticket sales for both the veteran fests like Coachella and Bonnaroo, and the 'newbies', have been overall successful so far for 2008.

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals

From Bonnaroo to the newest releases, here is this week's indie shorties from around the web:

Pearl Jam mixes rarities, hits, politics at Bonnaroo

Associated Press photos and images from the 2008 Bonnaroo Music Festival

Bonnaroo Opens with Chris Rock, Metallica Village Voice reviews Day 2 of the Bonnaroo Fest

My Morning Jacket plays a four-hour set at Bonnaroo, in the rain

Unsure REM Loses its Footing

All Music Guide's new releases

The Edge Looks To Rock Edinburgh Fringe

2008 Summer Festival Roundup

Death Cab For Cutie concert review at Philadelphia's the Mann Center

Indie rockers embracing African sounds

USA Today review and interview with the electro-punk pop band MGMT

Okkervil River and Other Acts added to line up of the Latitude Music Festival

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals, Indie News, Pearl Jam, REM

It's hard to believe there are only two days left in the four-day Bonnaroo Festival. So far, Bonnaroo fest goers have seen a variety of bands and musicians including Metallica, The Raconteurs, My Morning Jacket, Steve Marley, Battles, Jose Gonzales, Rilo Kiley, Willie Nelson, Tegan and Sara, MIA, The Swell Season, Les Claypool, Minus The Bear.

Here are some of the best YouTube videos from Bonnaroo from Thursday and Friday. Surprisingly, there are very few videos from Bonnaroo, unless you want to watch slices taped off a computer of the webcast.

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals, Bonnaroo

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals, Bonnaroo

This year's Live 105 BFD Festival was a completely different gig than last year's fest. For one, tickets sold out fairly fast (being that they were only $10.53 base price; one-third the cost of last year's tickets), whereas in 2007, they were still available on the day of the event, and not only that, but they were giving out free tickets.

Another change to this year's BFD was the fact that the venue was slightly moved around with the stages being set up in the parking lot area. There is still no official explanation for this, but it may have limited the number of tickets sold over last year.

On top of all of that, the 2007 BFD had a better line-up than this year's show, as many fans and reviewers have pointed out (including the San Jose Mercury News): Interpol, Social Distortion, AFI, Bloc Party, The National, Kings of Leon, CSS, Queens of the Stone Age and many others.

But again, for only $10 a pop, it's no wonder this year's BFD sold out, but it would have been a much better festival if they had anywhere near the same amazing line-ups as years past; and people would have paid the $30 or more for more headlining acts - that is pretty apparent from what so many are saying.

Based on the number of new festivals this year, it is not a stretch to conclude that BFD organizers had a hard time filling the line-up with 'top name' bands and artists for this year's event, and thus, the lower price for tickets.

Additionally, they make more money from advertising and vendors than the tickets anyways. Therefore, as one very disappointed past-BFD fan wrote, it's not like the festival-goer is really getting a break, especially if the line-up is such a drag compared to previous BFDs.

So far, there is not a very good selection of YouTube videos to show - which is amazing considering the Bay Area is a major tech and music center of the world. Perhaps, more videos of BFD 2008 will surface later on, but for now, here's the IRC picks:

Alkaline Trio - "Help Me"



Alkaline Trio was one of the best bands in the lineup for BFD 08, so here's another clip - "Radio"



Here's another view of Alkaline Trio playing "Radio"



MSTRKRFT performing with lightshow at 2008 BFD:



More from MSTRKRFT's BFD set:



MGMT serves up "Of Moons, Birds & Monsters"



Airborne Toxic Event bangs out "Sometime Around Midnight"



LoveLikeFire performing "Signs"



The Kooks performing short clip of "Naive"



PlayRadioPlay performing "I'm The Pirate, You're The Princess" at BFD 08



Magic Bullets performing "Yesterday's Seen Better Days"



Thought this was cute; little kid dancing to Cypress Hill



AntiFlag - Song title? (short clip, not best quality)



Santogold performing "You'll Find A Way"

From inside the tent: Cover version of Daft Punk's "One More Time" by (anyone know? Bueller? Bueller...)



If you have any interest in seeing the BFD trash left around after the festival, check out the After BFD video. Other videos include performances from Here, Here; Apside plays "K Vision"; short clip of Flogging Molly; PlayRadioPlay performing "Compliment Each Other Like Colors".

YouTuber OHteenhearts offers a bunch of videos from BFD, but they are fairly low quality and short. Yet if you are a crazy Kooks or MGMT fan, and you just must see no matter what, check them out.

Related reading:

Live 105 BFD - The Flobots
Folly Molly, Cypress Hill, Alexander Hamilton Highlight 2008 BFD

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals

San Francisco rock radio station Live 105 kicks off its annual all-day music festival next week, Saturday, June 7, 2008 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mt. View, California.

This is one of the best day-long music festivals in the United States considering the ticket price - a mere $10 - and the range of popular indie artists playing at the 10-hour festival. Talk about bang for the buck!

Tickets are on sale now. IRC does not endorse any ticketing outlets, but you can click BFD ticketing (links to Google results) to find tickets.

If it is like it was last year, you can also take a chance and show up to get free tickets. People in blue coats were handing out free tickets at the gate shortly after 1 pm.

If that doesn't happen, you'll probably still be able to buy tickets at the box office, or if worse comes to worse, find one a scalper.

Gates open at 11:30am, festival starts at 12:00pm .BFD Line-up for the BudLight Festival Stage (12:00pm-8:30pm) with links to MySpace pages:

Cypress Hill

Pennywise

Flogging Molly

Alkaline Trio

The Kooks

Everlast

Anti-Flag

Antithetic to the Cure

Atreyu

Airborne Toxic Event

Flobots

The Whigs

More bands!

Moby
MSTRKRFT
DJ AM
Santogold
Steve Aoki
Lyrics Born
Mike Relm
PlayRadioPlay
DJ Omar Richard
Oh HOTTUB
DJ Miles

SOUNDCHECK LOCAL San Francisco Bay Area Stage (1:00pm-6:00pm)

The Phenomenauts
Love Like Fire
Here Here
Magic Bullets
Apside
The Hundred Days
Federalists
The Action Design

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals

Hailed as the 'world's largest music festival', Summerfest 2008 organizers have announced the line-up for the 'classic rock' stage which will be located at the south end of Henry Maier Festival Park and sponsored by Milwaukee FM radio stations 97.3 The Brew and My 95.7.

Here is the line-up of artists set to headline the M&I Classic Rock Stage during late June and early July:

June 26 - 9:00 pm - Three Dog Night
June 27 - 10:00 pm - Think Floyd
June 28 - 5:30 pm - Daryl Stuermer
June 28 - 10:00 pm - Blondie (see video below)
June 29 - 10:00 pm - Dickey Betts
June 30 - 8:30 pm - A Tribute to James Brown featuring Bootsy Collins along with The Original James Brown Horn Section & Long Wilson, Bobby Byrd Band (featuring Mrs. Vicky Anderson Byrd), Escapism (featuring Venisha Brown), iCandi, Freekbass, Djizzle, ZienPlanet10
July 1 - 8:30 pm - Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo
July 2 - 9:00 pm - Creedence Clearwater Revisited
July 3 - 10:00 pm - Kansas
July 4 - 10:00 pm - Mountain
July 5 - 3:00 pm - The Zombies
July 5 - 10:00 pm - Cheap Trick
July 6 - 9:00 pm - Earth Wind and Fire

This is the official music video for Blondie's 1979 smash hit "Heart of Glass":

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals

The above video is a promotional vid for the 2008 10K Lakes Festival in Minnesota.

With two months and three weeks left until the festival gates open for the 2008 10,000 Lakes Festival. The following artists have just been added:

Deep Banana Blackout
Lotus
Extra Golden
Papa Mali
New Primitives
God Johnson
Lynx
Ultraviolet Hippopotamus

You can purchase your tickets now before the May 15 price increase. Get the full details on camping tickets. Tickets for the four-day general admission and camping fee are now selling for $130.

The festival takes place on five stages starting Wednesday, July 23 through Saturday, July 26 at the Soo Pass Ranch in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

The 10,000 Lakes Festival official line-up features:

Phil Lesh and Friends
The Flaming Lips
Michael Franti and Spearhead
Leftover Salmon
Mickey Hart Band feat. Kimock & Porter
George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic [Late Night]
Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood
Slightly Stoopid
Dark Star Orchestra
WookieFoot
TR3 featuring Tim Reynolds
The Bad Plus
JJ Grey & MOFRO
Deep Banana Blackout [Late Night]
Lotus [Late Night]
Extra Golden
Bonerama
Papa Mali
EOTO
Panjea with Michael Kang
Everyone Orchestra
The Waybacks
Secret Chiefs 3
The New Mastersounds
Dub Trio
The Wood Brothers
Cornmeal
God Johnson
Family Groove Company
U-Melt
One Under
New Primitives
Kinetix
Redux
Lynx
Pert' Near Sandstone
The Rhinestone Diplomats
WBPN
Ultraviolet Hippopotamus
The Hue

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals

After much anticipation, the official line-up for the 2008 Virgin Mobile Festival has been announced (see below).

Tickets for the two-day festival sponsored by billionaire Richard Branson start at $175 for the full two days, however, single day tickets have not been released, which is the norm when festivals first announce the official line-up.

This year marks the third year of the Virgin Mobile Festival held August 9-10 at Pimilco Race Course in Baltimore, MD.

Here is the official VMF line-up:

August 9
Main Stage

Bloc Party
Cat Power
Chuck Berry and The Silver Beats
Citizen Cope
Duffy
Foo Fighters
Gogol Bordello
Jack Johnson
KT Tunstall
Lupe Fiasco
The Offspring
Paramore
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings
The Swell Season
Wilco

Dance Tent

DJ Dan & Donald Glaude
Erol Alkan
Ferry Corsten
Soul Wax
Steve Lawler
Underworld

August 10
Main Stage

Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire
The Black Keys
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Bob Dylan
The Go! Team
Iggy & The Stooges
Kanye West
Lil Wayne
Nine Inch Nails
She & Him
Shudder to Think
Stone Temple Pilots
Taking Back Sunday

Dance Tent

Armin van Buuren
Chromeo
Deadmau5
Moby (DJ Set)
Pendulum
Richie Hawtin

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals, Virgin Mobile Festival

The line-up for the 2008 Austin City Limits Festival has just been released.

Headliners for the famous, three-day musical festival in Austin, Texas include Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Beck, Foo Fighters, Gnarls Barkley, N.E.R.D., The Mars Volta, David Byrne, Gnarls Barkley, The Raconteurs, Vampire Weekend, The Black Keys, Band of Horses, Iron & Wine, Hot Chip, Okkervil River, Jamie Lidell, Jenny Lewis, CSS and Spiritualized.

Other musicians and bands set to play in the ACL Festival 2008 line-up include:

Jamie Lidell, Man Man, Jenny Lewis, Stars, M. Ward, Drive-By Truckers, Neko Case, John Fogerty, Roky Erickson, Del the Funky Homosapien, Silversun Pickups, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, Swell Season, José González, Yeasayer, Octopus Project, Against Me!, Erykah Badu, MGMT, Manu Chao, Tegan and Sara, The Kills, Mates of State, Antibalas, Gogol Bordello, What Made Milwaukee Famous, and White Denim.

What do you think of the line-up? Who else would you like to see play Austin City Limits in 2008?

Stream a mashup of this year's ACL performers from Cassettes Won't Listen

Stay tuned for profiles, videos, MP3s, schedules and more from this year's Austin City Limits Festival.

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals, Austin City Limits Festival

The Isle of Skye Music Festival has been canceled by organizers for running out of money. Festival organizers reportedly fell into the red by $500,000 Pounds. I'd love to know how and who screwed this up, especially in a year when music festivals are raking in cash. The Reading and Leeds festivals' sold out in just days.

That's bad news for all the rock fans in Scotland who planned to attend this year's festival - which was considered the most "fan-friendly" of all festivals in Europe in 2006.

So, for the memories, here's some audio and video from past Isle of Skye Music festivals.

Here's some memories:

A six-minute set from Kasabian performing at the 2007 Skye Festival:



Video of Echo and the Bunnymen (post punk icons) performing "Lips Like Sugar" at Skye Fest 07:

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals, Music Festivals

Today's Music Festival Round Up Report, Part One:

- Bamboozle Left is on this weekend in Irvine, Califronia. Get a report, see the lineup and sample some of the fest performers' MP3s. Read more...

- The V Festival in Australia is losing money, according to billionaire tycoon Richard Branson, but he says in the long-run it will be worth it. Nevertheless, tens of thousands have turned out for the second years of the Down Under's traveling festival, which continues this weekend. Read more...

- The official line-up for Lollapalooza 2008 will be announced only hours from now and there will be a full guide to Lollapalooza posted here when it does, including the full line up of artists, videos and MP3s of the best Lolla performances and artists of last year's event. In the meantime, here's all the news for Lollapalooza 2008, including rumored headliners, ticket sales and the wait game. Read more...

- South by Southwest 2008 was another resounding success, proving once again that it is the king of all festivals for just about everything currently hot, and up and coming, in the world we call indie rock music, film and art.

Here are a series of articles about SxSW, and just in case you didn't get enough of the popular music festival, the following links provide more from SxSW:

- http://www.emediawire.com/releases/sxsw/2008/prweb815894.htm - An argument for why South by Southwest is the best music festival of all the others around the world to attend.

- http://www.mtv.com/photos/?fid=1583193&pid=2837741 – Gallery of SXSW 2008 photos

- http://stereogum.com/tag/sxsw - Stereogum's full coverage of SouthBy is worth checking out for South by Southwest fans and those curious about what SxSW is all about.

Check back or get the feed; more festival news coming throughout the next week to keep you completely briefed on everything that's going on (with focus on the major music festivals for practical reasons) for 2008 music festivals around the world.

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals, Music Festivals

There is so much music festival news coming out right now that it's like trying to watch three horses races at once.

To some people it may seem early in the year to be planning for summer rock festivals, but just the opposite is true. This is the time.

In the case of the south's popular Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, plenty of music fest fans have been holding their breath waiting for ticket and artist line-up news. Bonnaroo 2008 has been set to take place June 12-15.

Breaking now: Bonnaroo tickets are set to go on sale Feb. 19, 2008 at 10 a.m. EST and the first list of confirmed artists has just been issued.

Someone should write a song to this next block of text (the challenge is on) and put it on YouTube or wherever.

Anyways, artists from the official line-up that are linked are artists that have been featured on this blog and those in bold print are artists I like and plan to write about soon. Regretably, I must admit, like any music blogger, there are probably excellent artists in the line-up that I have yet to discover.

Artists listed in bold are artists and groups that will be featured in the weeks to come.

Official Bonnaroo Fest line-up (no times yet)

Pearl Jam, Metallica, Jack Johnson, Kanye West, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Phil Lesh & Friends, My Morning Jacket, The Allman Brothers Band, The Raconteurs, Willie Nelson, Death Cab for Cutie, B.B. King, Sigur Rós , Levon Helm and the Ramble on the Road, Ben Folds, O.A.R., The Bluegrass Allstars Feat. Luke Bulla, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Bryan Sutton, M.I.A., Umphrey's McGee, Iron & Wine, Yonder Mountain String Band, Swell Season, Talib Kweli, Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi’s Soul Stew Revival, Gogol Bordello, Broken Social Scene (pictured at right), Robert Randolph’s Revival, Rilo Kiley, Mastodon, Lupe Fiasco, Against Me!, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, Pat Green, Ozomatli, Tegan & Sara

Solomon Burke, Drive-By Truckers, !!!, The Avett Brothers, Israel Vibration, Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck, Larry Campbell, Jackie Greene, Aimee Mann, Ladytron, The Fiery Furnaces, Orchestra Baobab, Ghostland Observatory, José González, Dark Star Orchestra, Minus the Bear, Donavon Frankenreiter, State Radio, Battles, Jakob Dylan, Two Gallants, The Sword, Vampire Weekend, Little Feat, Nicole Atkins, The Felice Brothers, Mason Jennings, MGMT, The Lee Boys, Black Kids, Serena Ryder, Steel Train, Grupo Fantasma, Back Door Slam.

The folks at Bonnaroo have yet to release the schedule, times and stages for where and when the artists will be playing, but stay tuned and the details will be posted as soon as they are available.

During the next few months, there will be more profiles published of artists appearing at various festivals around the world in 2008.

The following MP3s are from three indie outfits scheduled to place this year:

Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

Iron & Wine - Boy With A Coin

Ladytron - AMTV

IRC MP3 Policy: All MP3s are for evaluation and to help promote the artists. MP3s featured on this site are the property of their owner. If any musicians or labels want a particular MP3 removed, please contact me and it will be done immediately.

Labels: 2008 Music Festivals, Bonnaroo