Park Magazine Blog

Festival line ups 2011

GLASTONBURY
The artists confirmed to be performing at Glastonbury Festival 2011 include the headline acts on the Pyramid Stage: U2, Coldplay and Beyoncé, performing on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. U2, who famously pulled out of performing last year due to Bono's back injury will headline this year with the other two artists.
After the release of the line up, BBC reviewed the artist choice. "Sunday night's Pyramid Stage has never quite seen a headliner like Beyoncé. The former Destiny's Child singer watched from side of stage as husband Jay-Z blew Noel Gallagher and half of Pilton away with an extraordinary set three years ago, and returns in 2011 to take on Glasto for herself." The R&B star said she is "pumped" to perform for Pilton farm's "huge audience", and, like an R&B vampire, to "soak up their energy".
Beyonce spoke to The Guardian about the news of her headlining the British festival. "This really is the biggest festival in the world and I cannot wait to perform there," she said. "Everyone who attends is really appreciative of music and is in such a good mood that entire weekend."
The crowd's reaction to this incredibly successful R&B artist is expected to be very different to the response to 50 Cents performance back in 2004 at Reading festival. It was the turn of rapper 50 Cent, who was pelted with bottles, lasting nearly 20 minutes before finally throwing his microphone into the crowd in anger.

Expectations of glasto 2011 are high following a very succesful year in 2010 having it's own 40^th anniversey of the Glastonbury festival tradition.

READING
For those of you who have never been to Reading, there are a number of stages scattered around the festival where you would find different genres of music being performed by many diverse artists.

Stages include the main stage, which accomodate major rock, indie, Metal and alternative acts.

Nme/Radio 1 stage - less well-known acts, building up to an alternative headline act

Festival republic - acts with less popular appeal and breakthrough acts

Lock Up Stage – underground punk and hardcore acts

Dance tent – dance music acts

Alternative tent – comedy and cabaret acts plus DJs

BBC Introducing Stage – Typically unsigned/not well known acts

The initial line-up announcement of Reading festival 2011 was made on Monday 21 March 2011, after tickets went on sale. My Chemical Romance, Pulp, The Strokes and Muse were confirmed as headliners. Hoping for a year that was as popular as last year, with headliners 2010: Guns N' Roses, Arcade Fire, Blink-182

MTV tell us that My Chemical Romance will headline Reading Festival's Richfield Avenue on Friday 26th August and Leeds on the Saturday, with 30 Seconds To Mars, Deftones and The Offspring offering support.

Saturday night sees The Strokes co-headline the main stage with Pulp, along with The National, Jimmy Eat World and Madness. They will then hit Leeds' Bramham Park on the Sunday.

Muse will then headline Reading on Sunday after hitting the main stage at Leeds on Friday. They will be joined by the likes of Elbow, Friendly Fires and Interpol.

As well as the main headliners, the likes of Beady Eye, Noah & The Whale and The Streets have also been confirmed as part of the stellar line-up.

Sussex downs students Harriet, Lucy, Shanice and Chloe commented on Reading festival 2010 and the line up. Lucy shares, "Dizzee rascal gave the best performance of the weekend and had the crowd going crazy. He received an awesome response from everyone, jumping in the air and singing to all his songs"

Harriet added, "I love the fact that at festivals some of the artists are so different and diverse, we ended up watching a band named Gogal Bordello, which we never thought we'd see because of the genre of music, but the performance was amazing and so memorable!"

Radio 1 will be bringing you all of the highlights, backstage gossip and interviews with some of the biggest artists in the world.

V FEST

V festival, located in Chelmsford and Stafforshire, officially announced, on the 28th February, that Arctic Monkeys and Eminem would headline 2011's festival, and also Plan B and Rihanna would join them, subheading.

Now in its 16th year, it will see performances from Rihanna, Plan B, Kaiser Chiefs, The Script, Tinie Tempah, Pendulum, Bruno Mars, Ellie Goulding and Jessie J.

Danny O'Donoghue from The Script tells MTV reporters: "V Festival was our first ever UK show three years ago. It was a baptism of fire but we survived it. "

"We love to play V; it's a real party for both festival goers and bands. We can't wait for it."

Rihanna was announced that she was the special guest at V fest this year, performing underneath headliner, Eminem. It is rumoured that Rihanna will join the American rapper to perform their track together, "Love the way you lie." Rihanna has become globally known and her music respected even more over 2010/2011, her career has been very successful due to the release of her latest album, Loud.