Splendour clashes and rumours

Tue 23rd Mar, 2010 in Local News

FasterLouder has already ruled out a long list of hopefulls, but now we can cross a few more acts off our Splendour wishlist.

The lineup for Montreal’s Osheaga Arts and Music Festival has been confirmed and it dashes the hopes for a Splendour show from many of our favourites.

Running on the same dates as Splendour – 31 July to 1 August – the Canadian festival has an enviable line up boasting Arcade Fire, Weezer, Metric, The National, The Black Keys, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Gaslight Anthem, Beach House, Robyn, Jamie Lidell, Stars, The Cat Empire and Blitzen Trapper. The greedy Canadians also booked recent Australian tourists Pavement.

European festivals have also announced strong line ups of Splendour contenders with N.E.R.D and The Hives busy playing the Putte i Parken Festival in Sweden between the 28th and 31st of July and The Roots playing at the delightfully named Blue Balls festival in Switzerland on the 31st.

The Bestival in the UK also steals a few acts from the possible Splendour bill by booking Madness, The Human League, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic and Friendly Fires between 30 July and 1 August.

Gorillaz have announced that they’ll only be playing two festivals in 2010; so their place on the Roskilde and Cochella lineups means that Splendour is off the itinerary.

Local luminaries Cut Copy have a gig in Oslo on Saturday 31 July which strongly suggests that they won’t be able to venture back south for Splendour. While Kings of Leon have also ruled themselves out by taking Only The Night to the American masses on a tour that will see them in Detroit and Hartford, Connecticut during Splendour.

In better news, Japan’s Summer Sonic and Fuji Rock can act as Splendour indicators, and Fuji has added !!! and Miike Snow. To a lineup which already includes the likes of Yeasayer, Broken Social Scene, Belle and Sebastian and LCD Soundsystem.

MGMT has also been added to Fuji lineup lending some strength to the suspicion that they’ll quickly on the heals of their single show Australian promo tour, while the reformed Brit-pop punchline Kula Shaker has also wrangled a trip to Japan.