Spilt Milk swaps 2024 flagship for ‘House Parties’
Australia’s Spilt Milk is launching a series of House Party events in place of its cancelled 2024 flagship festival.
The 30,000-capacity multi-city flagship was axed earlier this year, with organisers saying, “We couldn’t get you the Spilt Milk you deserve this year”.
In its place, organisers will deliver a series of more intimate events in November, with a mix of international and domestic stars including Glass Animals, Troye Sivan, G Flip, Artemas and Sycco.
The House Party series will take over Perth’s Kings Park & Botanic Garden on 17 November before heading east to Broadwater Parklands at the Gold Coast on 23 November and then to Newcastle Entertainment Centre on 24 November.
“We’ve moved all the furniture around to make extra room, but tix will still be pretty limited so sign up to presale if you’re keen,” said organisers in a statement.
“We’ve moved all the furniture around to make extra room, but tix will still be pretty limited so sign up to presale if you’re keen”
Despite being regular stops on the usual Spilt Milk tour, Canberra and Ballarat aren’t due to host House Parties.
Spilt Milk started in Canberra in 2016, expanding to the Gold Coast and Ballarat in 2019 and Perth in 2023. Across its run, the festival hosted artists including Dom Dolla, Vince Staples, Lorde, Cub Sport, RL Grime, Peking Duk, Khalid, Juice WRLD, Steve Lacy, and Post Malone.
Spilt Milk is just one casualty in Australia’s beleaguered festival sector, which has been left in disarray following a flurry of cancellations.
In perhaps the most severe blow for the sector, Byron Bay Bluesfest organiser Peter Noble announced that the 2025 edition of the long-running festival would be the last – though yesterday he added that “it doesn’t have to be”.
Prior to that, Adelaide’s Harvest Rock pulled the plug on its 2024 edition, following in the footsteps of other high-profile casualties such as Splendour in the Grass, Groovin The Moo, Coastal Jam, Summerground, Vintage Vibes, Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree and ValleyWays.
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APE announces Tame Impala in UK exclusive
All Points East today (19 November) made its first line-up reveal for 2020, announcing Tame Impala as a UK-exclusive headliner on Saturday 23 May.
It will be the Australian psych-pop titans’ only British show of the year, and follow the February release of their fourth studio album, and first in five years, The Slow Rush. The Kevin Parker-led outfit headlined Coachella this April, and followed it up with a headline performance at the O2 in London in June and two sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden in August.
Tame Impala (pictured) released their latest single, the Supertramp-influenced ‘It Might Be Time’, in October.
Also playing All Points East on 23 May is Canadian composer-producer Caribou, who breaks his silence to perform his first new music in five years, and electro-indie heroes Glass Animals, who similarly returned recently with a new single, ‘Tokyo Drifting’.
Other performers include Whitney, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Kelly Lee Owens and Holy F, with more to be announced.
All Points East is Tame Impala’s only UK show in 2020
The line-up reveal comes as charity Attitude is Everything recognises All Points East for its commitment to accessibility, awarding the festival its ‘silver status’. Fellow AEG Presents-promoted festival, British Summer Time (BST) Hyde Park, received the charity’s top gold status accolade earlier this year.
In addition to existing pre-bookable viewing platforms, hearing induction loops, designated entrance lanes and dedicated access customer service teams, All Points East is this year implementing Recite Me software to improve accessibility on its website.
The 40,000-capacity All Points East debuted to a “phenomenal” response in 2018, after AEG was awarded a five-year exclusive on the use of east London’s Victoria Park. It follows a similar format to AEG/Goldenvoice’s successful BST event in Hyde Park, combining two weekends of music with a BST-style free-to-access midweek offering, All Points East In the Neighbourhood.
The 2019 line-up included the Chemical Brothers, Hot Chip and Primal Scream (24 May), the Strokes, the Raconteurs and Interpol (25 May), Christine and the Queens, James Blake and Metronomy (26 May), Bring Me the Horizon and Run the Jewels (31 May), Bon Iver (2 June) and many more.
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Glass Animals drummer seriously injured in bike accident
English indie rock band Glass Animals have cancelled the remainder of their 2018 tour dates, as well as support shows with Beck, after drummer Joe Seaward was seriously injured in a road accident.
In a statement on the band’s Instagram page, frontman Dave Bayley explained Seaward had been hit by a truck whilst on his bike in Dublin. After breaking his leg on impact, Seaward then became tangled in the truck’s trailer, where he sustained a complex fracture to his skull.
“Miraculously and thankfully, he is alive,” the statement reads. Seaward has since been operated on twice, once to help his leg and the other to reshape his fractured skull. The operation to corrected his skull initially left him unable to speak properly. Bayley writes: “The operation was successful, but the collapsed skull had bruised and damaged the area of the brain responsible for speech.
“Miraculously and thankfully, he is alive”
“Initially Joe was only able to get out one word… ‘I’… but each day he is finding more.”
Since the two operations, Bayley says the drummer is making good progress. Trying to soften the blow to fans and lighten the news, Bayley jokes that the pins now holding the two halves of Seawards femur together means, “basically he is now Wolverine.”
The band have apologised for not being able to make the shows, with the statement saying that Seaward’s injuries are not likely to heal in time to make any shows before the end of the year.
Glass Animals shows that have been cancelled include a sold-out show in Tampa, Florida, as well as shows in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and France and festival appearances at Mad Cool and Velorama. All tickets for shows will be refunded at the point of purchase.
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All Points East adds headliners LCD Soundsystem, Björk
Björk and LCD Soundsystem have been confirmed as further headliners for All Points East, joining the xx for the first weekend of Goldenvoice UK’s newly announced ten-day festival in London’s Victoria Park.
All Points East (APE), announced last week, will be staged in the 213-acre east London park from 25 May to 3 June 2018, and combine two weekends of music with a BST-style free-to-access midweek offering. Goldenvoice owner AEG has been awarded exclusive use of the park for events until 2022, forcing Field Day, Lovebox and Citadel to relocate to pastures new, rumoured to be Brockwell Park in south London.
The new additions to the 40,000-a-day-cap. festival were revealed at a launch party at the Approach Tavern in east London last night. They also include Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Phoenix, Glass Animals, Close, Dixon and George Fitzgerald on the LCD Soundsystem-headlined 25 May event; Lorde, Sampha and Rex Orange County on The xx-headlined 26 May; and Beck, Father John Misty and Flying Lotus 3D on the Björk-headlined 27 May show.
The National, meanwhile, headline a headline show, APE Presents, on 2 June, also featuring the War on Drugs, Future Islands, Warpaint and the Districts.
“LCD Soundsystem and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are two of the best live acts in existence”
“It’s an honour to be asked to play a night with such stellar headliners,” says Glass Animals frontman Dave Bayley. “LCD Soundsystem and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are two of the best live acts in existence. In fact my favourite show of all time was LCD in 2007 at Reading Festival. It’s where I met our drummer, Joe. And Karen O is one of the greatest frontpeople of all time, and a hero of mine
“We’ll have to up our game, then we’re definitely going to hang around and have a wild one. After party at my house… Can’t wait!”
The latest line-up poster is below:
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Rob da Bank, Foals join campaign to save the Cellar
Local bands Foals, Ride and Glass Animals, along with DJ and Bestival founder Rob da Bank, are among those to have signed a new petition opposing the impending closure of the Cellar, one of Oxford’s best-loved independent music venues.
The 150-capacity basement club – established 40 years ago by local promoter Adrian Hopkins and now managed by his son, Tim – is to be turned into a retail space, landlord St Michael’s and All Saints’ Charities announced earlier this week.
In addition to Foals, Glass Animals et al., the Cellar has hosted early-career shows by Mumford & Sons, The xx, Young Knives, Stornoway, Diplo and Friendly Fires, and is recognised as a “pivotal venue in the development of Oxford’s musical history”, according to the petition, which is already close to its 10,000-signature target.
Tim Hopkins comments: “It is devastating news, not just for the Cellar team, but for the Oxford music scene as a whole. The loss of an important cultural asset such as the Cellar is a matter of concern for everyone – not just the music fans and musicians of Oxford. It should be of concern to anyone who cares about jobs, the night-time economy, local creativity and the social community of the city. We appreciate the pressures that may be felt by St Michael’s and All Saints’ Charities, but the aims of the charity are not furthered by losing such a vital local space.
“It’s quite clear that the people of Oxford want the Cellar to stay”
“We would welcome the opportunity to work with St Michael’s and All Saints’ to look at an alternative way to increase their income, if this is their aim, but we have yet to be consulted on this. Working together could led to economic benefits for the charity, and we urge the trustees to pause and consider the wider benefits that a cultural space such as the Cellar brings to the local community.”
Mark Davyd of Music Venue Trust says allowing the conversion of the venue to a shop would be contrary to Oxford City Council’s culture strategy. “We urge St Michaels and All Saints to withdraw their application and work with the Cellar to develop a proposal that protects this important venue,” he comments. “Oxford City Council have a very clear cultural strategy, and converting a fantastic cultural asset like the Cellar into a retail space quite obviously flies in the face of that, as well as the needs of local people.
“It’s quite clear that the people of Oxford want the Cellar to stay, and we hope the charity will recognise this and reconsider their plans.”
IQ revealed earlier this month that publicly funded arts body Arts Council England has allocated just 0.06% of its total funding to popular music venues in its 2018–22 grants.
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