Over the next couple of days, IRC will publish complete updates on the latest news for 2008 music festivals, including Bonnaroo, SXSW, Coachella, Rothbury, Bamboozle, Sziget, Glastonbury, Austin City Limits, Virgin Festival and many others.

Next month, a comprehensive guide will be published and feature all of 2008's indie-relevant music festivals including the latest news, ticket info, line-ups, artist profiles, discussions, photos, MP3s and videos of past performances.

Lollapalooza (August 1-3, 2008) - While ticket sale dates and the line-up for Lollapalooza 2008 have yet to be announced (as of 2/26/08), rumors are flying everywhere about which artists and groups might be playing at this year's Lolllapalooza.

If the lineup is anything like last year's (see flashback to 07 below), there will be more lolla than looza.

The following artists are rumored to be set for Lollapalooza, according to the official website's board moderator sixtimes:

The rumor mill seems to be favoring the following artists as headliners: The Smashing Pumpkins (not a SP reunion, so it's really Billy Corgan and the band), Radiohead (who wouldn't love that, especially since In Rainbows is crazy popular in and of itself with a whole new generation), Wilco, Bjork, The National, Tom Petty and The Police.

Rumor mongering is dangerous, so let's just say that as soon as the line-up is announced, it will be published here (got folks in the mix but they are staying mum right now).

In the meantime, let's warp back to six months go for a memory fest of 2007's killer lineup:

Headlining Lollapalooza 2007 was an eclectic mix of popular alternative, indie, rock, mainstream and electronica artists like Pearl Jam, Daft Punk, Modest Mouse, Ben Harper, Muse, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Patti Smith, The Roots, Amy Winehouse, LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, The Black Keys, Kings of Leon and others.

The headliners did not come at the expense of 'second-bill' artists and groups Tokyo Police Club, !!!, My Morning Jacket, Yo La Tengo, Ted Leo and Pharmacists, Snow Patrol, CSS, Annuals, Blue October and many other indie artists who rocked Grant Park.

Where is Lollapalooza? The annual event is held in Chicago's Grant Park on the shores Lake Michigan right off the Miracle Mile. Here's a map of last year's festival grounds.

Last year, festival goers endured blistering heat and suffocating humidity (as did festival attendees at the Austin City Limits fest in Austin).

Some folks may not realize this, but it's a fact that festival organizers deliberately schedule such outdoor summer events during the 'doggiest' days of summer. Why? They sell more drinks at ridiculous prices.

Now, in fairness to event organizers, there are tremendous costs to put events like popular music festivals together. Still, don't shed a tear for the organizers, corporate sponsors and vendors, they are raking in money.

The other point is that most music festivals are attended by students - whether college age or under - who obviously have the most free time during the summer months.

Labels: Lollapalooza 2008, Music Festivals

Organizers of the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival have released the official line-up for this year's event, slated for April 25-27, 2008.

Pink Floyd founding member Roger Waters, Kraftwerk, Portishead, My Morning Jacket, Death Cab for Cutie, Love and Rockets, Spiritulalized, Hot Chip, Madness and Fatboy Slim are just some of the headliners for the three-day music fest and art show. Nothing that great really.

Here is the full line-up in its entirety:

April 25 – Jack Johnson, the Verve, the Raconteurs, the Breeders, Fatboy Slim, Tegan and Sara, Madness, the Swell Season, the National, Animal Collective, Slightly Stoopid, Mum, Pendulum, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Stars, Battles, Aesop Rock, Midnight Juggernauts, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Minus the Bear, Spank Rock, Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobies Pip, Diplo, Adam Freeland, Santo Gold, Jens Lekman, the John Butler Trio, Vampire Weekend, Dan Deacon, Architecture in Helsinki, Sandra Collins, Busy P, Cut Copy, Black Lips, Datarock, Professor Murder, Reverend and the Makers, the Bees, Porter, Rogue Wave, Modeselektor, American Bang and Lucky I Am.

April 26 – Portishead, Kraftwerk, Death Cab for Cutie, Cafe Tacuba, Sasha & Digweed, Rilo Kiley, M.I.A., Dwight Yoakam (this year's token country act, also appearing at Stagecoach the following weekend), Hot Chip, Cold War Kids, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, DeVotchKa, Flogging Molly, Mark Ronson, Turbonegro, Scars on Broadway, Islands, Enter Shikari, Calvin Harris, Boyz Noise, Junkie XL, Cinematic Orchestra, Jamie T, the Teenagers, VHS or Beta, Carbon/Silicon, Erol Alkan, Yo Majesty!, Bonde Do Role, St. Vincent, Akron Family, MGMT, Institubes DJs, Surkin, Para One and Orgasmic, James Zabiela, Sebastian, Kavinsky, Dredg, the Bird and the Bee, Grand Ole Party, New Young Pony Club, 120 Days, Yoav, Eletric Touch and Uffie.

April 27 – Roger Waters, Love and Rockets, My Morning Jacket, Spiritualized, Justice, Gogol Bordello, Chromeo, the Streets, Metric, Simian Mobile Disco, the Horrors, Danny Tenaglia, Booka Shade, Murs, Dimitri from Paris, Autolux, the Field, Linton Kwesi Johnson (in a spoken-word appearance), Les Savy Fav, the Cool Kids, Sons and Daughters, Sia, Black Kids, Black Mountain, the Annuals, Kid Sister with A-Trak, Man Man, Duffy, I'm From Barcelona, Manchester Orchestra, Deadmaus, Austin TV, Shout Out Louds, Plasticenes and Brett Dennen.

Labels: 2008 Indie Festivals, Concerts, Music Festivals, Portishead

Did you miss Coachella? Well, there’s good news for alternative and indie rock fans in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere who did.

There's a "mini-Cochella" (what's Coachella?) without the searing heat of the central southern California desert.

On Saturday, June 9, San Francisco rock station 105 Live FM is hosting an impressive line-up of artists from the indie rock scene, including Bloc Party, Interpol, Social Distortion, Kaiser Chiefs, Cold War Kids, CSS, Shiny Toy Guns and many more (full listing below).

Labels: Music Festivals

The third annual Download Festival 2007 will offer fans indie rock favorites like The Shines, Wolf Parade, Modest Mouse, Icubus and more to be announced in coming weeks (get updates as they come in. More bands will be added on May 29).

The Download Festival, which Pitchfork calls "merely the little brother to the long-running, testosterone-fueled" UK Throwdown, will visit four U.S. cities beginning August 18 for four shows total that will end in October:


08-18 Boston, MA - Tweeter Center


08-25 George, WA - Gorge Amphitheatre


09-01 East Troy, WI - Alpine Valley Music Theatre


10-06 Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre


Stay tune for information about tickets by signing up for the IRC feed.

Labels: Download Festival, Music Festivals, UK Throwdown

Organizers of Coachella, the popular annual music festival in the desert east of San Diego, have synced up with a large telephone company to provide live, continuous webcast from Coachella Central featuring some of the most talented and popular artists in indie and alternative music.

Coachella has become in recent years the indie rock scene's answer to Lollapoloza, and indie fans come from across the globe to attend the festival.

Three-day passes for this year's event sold out in a matter of days and single day passes for the weekend sold out almost as quickly. Camp site passes are also sold out, but of course, there are many tickets still for sale on eBay.

For all of the indie rock fans who cannot make it to the festival, the webcast should help fill in some of the gap, even though it is nothing like being there - of course.

Let's just hope that the technicians and other folks have the server load capacity to allow tens of thousands, maybe hundreds, of thousand of fans around the world hear great indie and alternative artists like:

The Arcade Fire

Rage Against The Machine

Bjork

Arctic Monkeys

Interpol

Sonic Youth

Red Hot Chilli Peppers

The Kooks

Tapes n Tapes

!!!

Rufus Wainwright

Air

Blonde Redhead

New Pornographers

The Decemberists

See the entire line-up of artists scheduled to play at Coachella

While some fans, like me, would like Coachella to lighten up a little more like the Burning Man festival, it seems unlikely to happen.

In fact, there is a direct contradiction of course with the idealism of what indie music should be and the fact the Coachella is a very capitalistic, corporate sponsored and highly secured event.

The latter being the most annoying to fans nowadays, but since the Woodstock reunion disaster in 1998, 9/11 and the Virginia Tech shootings, fans who already have their tickets to Coachella (they are still also available on eBay, but of course, you'll pay more), their campsite passes or area accommodations (there are basically no motel or hotel rooms available for the festival weekend in the area with a few exceptions of rooms going for $500 and up a night at two and three-star accommodations).

Labels: Best Alternative Bands, Coachella Music Festival, Music Festivals

The Kooks announced a blitz two-week spring tour of the U.S. that will start with their performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 29.

The band's debut album, Inside In/Inside Out, released on Astralweeks, has been one of the hottest-selling debuts for any indie band in years.

The debut has already gone quadruple platinum in the U.K. and the band is catching on in the U.S. and Europe as one of the hottest new indie rock groups to emerge in recent years.

Make sure to check the IRC website for an exclusive set of live acoustic gigs featuring songs from their debut album and TWO new songs - “Need To Be” and “Miss You”.

The Kooks Tour Dates:

(not all tickets on sale yet. See which are.)

04/29 – Indio, CA – Coachella
04/30 – San Francisco, CA - Slim’s
05/02 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
05/03 – Seattle, WA – Crocodile Cafe
05/05 – Chicago, IL – Metro
05/07 – Columbus, OH – The Basement
05/08 – Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace
05/10 – New York, NY – Irving Plaza
05/12 – Washington DC – 9:30 Club
05/13 – Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club

Labels: Coachella Music Festival, Music Festivals, The Kooks