Festival Focus: Wireless, Hopscotch, Hulaween

Rapper Big Sean, British R&B singer Jay Sean (no relation), ex-Black Eyed Pea Fergie and Afrobeat musician Wiz Kid are among the newest acts announced for Live Nation’s Wireless Festival.

99 Souls, Angel, A2, Dawin, Elf Kid, Father, Fekky, Ghetts, Jorja Smith, KStewart, The Manor, Metro Boomin, Natalie La Rose, Rude Kid, Shakka, Sonny Digital and Thomas Jack and 99 Souls were also added to the line-up today as the north London festival – which recently announced a raft of new security measures under new director Melvin Benn as it battles a court case against residents’ group The Friends of Finsbury Park – gears up for its 12th edition in July.

DJ Charles will compère the main stage across the festival weekend.

There was finally some positive music news to come out of mass-boycotted North Carolina yesterday as Hopscotch Music Festival, a three-day event held in Raleigh in September, made its first line-up announcement.

Performers include Erykah Badu and Gary Clark Jnr, who will play the Red Hat Amphitheater, and Wolf Parade, Beach House, Anderson .Paak & the Free Nationals and Wye Oak, who will perform at the outdoor stage at Raleigh City Plaza. Young Thug, Andrew Bird and Television will perform in venues across the city.

Hopscotch is promoted by founder Greg Lowenhagen and talent coordinator Nathan Price, who for the first time this year partnered with Bonnaroo/Big Ears’ AC Entertainment to help book the festival’s largest venues: City Plaza, the Red Hat Amphitheater and the Memorial Auditorium. (Erykah Badu photo by Kate Gardiner.)

Returning to the Spirit of Suwannee Park in Live Oak, Florida, this Hallowe’en will be Suwannee Hulaween (geddit?), which this year boasts a String Cheese Incident-heavy line-up headlined by a three-night slot by the veteran bluegrass/jam band.

Also on the bill at the Hallowe’en-themed event, promoted by Silver Wrapper (also behind Chicago’s North Coast Music Festival and the Concord Music Hall venue), are My Morning Jacket, a Disclosure DJ set, rapper Logic, prog group Umphrey’s McGee, STS9 and livetronic combo Big Gigantic. Early bird, advance tier one, ‘mummy’ and ‘werewolf VIP tier one’ tickets are already sold out. (String Cheese Incident photo by Andrew Gardecki.)

A host of UK acts lead the line-up for the fifth Gibraltar Music Festival, which will be held in the British overseas territory on 3 and 4 September. Stereophonics are headlining, with Jess Glynne, Foxes, the reformed All Saints and KT Tunstall among the other high-profile names.

Also playing will be Spanish singer Rosario Flores and local acts Frontiers, Hollie April, Metro Motel and Dead City Radio. The festival takes place at the 5,000-capacity Victoria Stadium and is organised by Gibraltar’s ministry of culture. (Stereophonics photo by Jostijn Ligtvoet Fotografie.)

Due to “overwhelming demand”, Together the People has released a number of limited £55 day tickets for Bryan Wilson‘s UK festival exclusive performance of Pet Sounds on Saturday 3 September. Other acts performing in Brighton on the day include Hiatus Kaiyote, B. Dolan and Sage Francis, Gaz Coombes, Natty and Fickle Friends.

Laura Marling has been announced as the fourth and final headliner for the 2016 Green Man Festival, joining Belle & Sebastian, James Blake and Wild Beasts at the four-day event in Wales’s Brecon Beacons.

Also new are Lush, whose “haze-filtered, bittersweet grooves will be transporting us away to blissful harmony”, says the Fiona Stewart-promoted festival, Connan Mockasin, whose psych-pop sounds will “soundtrack carefree cavorting in the sun” and Charlotte Church’s Late Night Pop Dungeon (yes, that Charlotte Church), “a karaoke, glitter-bomb explosion unlike any other you’ve experienced before, or ever will again”. (Laura Marling photo by Paul Hudson.)

In Spain, Echo and the Bunnymen and Band of Skulls have been confirmed for July’s Festival Internacional de Benicassim (FIB) in Valencia. Also new to the festival, headlined by Muse, Major Lazer, The Chemical Brothers and Kendrick Lamar, are The Soft Moon, Dorian, Breakbot, Tijuana Panthers, Maadraassoo, John Grvy, Pacosan and Argentine band Capsula, who will play David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in full. (Band of Skulls photo by Matt Arena.)

Other festival-y things that have happened since last week’s Festival Focus include:

• A San Bernardino, California, councillor wants to ban dance events such as Beyond Wonderland and Nocturnal Wonderland
• Primavera Sound, Roskilde, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza USA, Bestival and Austin City Limits will be live-streamed on Red Bull TV
• American rapper Azealia Banks has been dropped from London dance event Born & Bred after racially abusing 1D’s Zayn Malik

See you next week…