Festival rumours

The new and strong rumour that's been flying around this week is that Arcade Fire will play Ejekt Festival (July 13-14) in Athens, Greece. Another band also on the lineup is supposedly LCD Soundsystem, a band Arcade Fire are close friends with. Stay tuned.

In other news it's now more or less confirmed Arcade Fire will headline Lollapalooza in Chicago, IL after festival organisers put up the lineup with blanks for us to fill in. At the top of the bill, right next to Lady Gaga (haha!), we ofcourse find Arcade Fire. The top line where the headliners are would read as this: Soundgarden, Green Day, Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, The Strokes and Phoenix. Official announcement on April 6.

Arcade Fire to headline Lollapalooza?

A man with supposedly very good insight at how the Lollapalooza booking process is progressing, Chicago Tribune's music critic Greg Kot, last night posted the following on his blog.

Lollapalooza 2010 headliners near confirmation: Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, Strokes, Soundgarden, Green Day
The Lollapalooza rumor mill has been buzzing for weeks, and five of the six headliners are nearing confirmation for the Aug. 6-8 festival in Grant Park, according to music-industry sources with knowledge of the negotiations: Lady Gaga, a reunited Soundgarden, Green Day, Arcade Fire and the Strokes.

Gaga, Soundgarden and Green Day were named Tuesday by the Daily Swarm, a music Web site that cited “multiple industry sources” in its report.

The Tribune has learned from its own sources that negotiations are progressing with Arcade Fire and the Strokes. The Lollapalooza lineup also will include several coveted rising bands, including Yeasayer, the xx, and Dirty Projectors, as well as veteran dance-oriented acts Cut Copy and Hot Chip, sources have confirmed.

A representative for Texas-based Lollapalooza promoters C3 Presents would not comment on any of the reports.

Lollapalooza 2010 headliners near confirmation

Hard to say how likely this is to be true. But the man apparently often is very well informed on these things and has been reliable in the past. The timing of the festival (6-8th August) is certainly within the time frame Billions set out earlier this year for them to start the tour. My main doubt about it at this point is I've always imagined them starting the tour with a whole bunch of shows of their own before doing any festival dates. Ah well, we'll see if anything comes out of this. The official confirmation of the headliners isn't expected to happen until sometime in April.

Fun fact, in contrast to all the rumour talk above; Lady Gaga played Lollapalooza in 2007. I bet a few more will see her this time around if she indeed makes her way back there this year. ha!

Arcade Fire rumour of interest

A very reliable and hard-to-please source of mine recently had a chance to drop by the studio and hear early versions of songs from Arcade Fire’s forthcoming third LP, and he promised to give me a sense of what to expect. These are some phrases he used:

“Fuller”

“More strings”

“More upbeat than Neon Bible”

“There’s a lot of Neil Young in Win’s voice”

“If these tracks were any indication, the album will be very, very good”

YVYNYL - Scoop: Arcade Fire's Third Album

There you have it. Is it true? Who knows, but this is enough to get me excited! You know, as if I wasn't already... Neil Young huh? WOW!