Electric Picnic 2018 **Discussion Only // No Ticket Sales** [Part 1]

MadYaker

I think Tame Impala could do it. They played second down at glasto in 2016 and smashed it. I think the next album will be huge.

maximoose

Fatfrog wrote: »

Really?? thoroughly enjoyed them! My mate didn't know any of their stuff and he was completely blown away by them!!

I know I'm definitely in the minority. I don't know what it was, the sound was good but the band being completely static against the tie dye visuals just wasn't doing it for me.

We were quite far up the hill and had probably peaked too early in the day, might have had something to do with it :pac:

Wouldn't mind seeing them in Electric Arena at picnic.

bodhrandude

ghostdancer wrote: »

yeah, TWOD are at the best main stage subs. Tame Impala would be a pretty small headliner booking for EP too, as good as they are. if FR are going to book them, I see headlining Longitude more likely.

'small headliner' Sure they headlined the EA on Sunday night in 2015, thats the Picnic's second largest stage.

mimimcmc

Off topic but is anyone from the Westport area and want tickets to Kormac this Friday? Would like them to go to a good home

MJohnston

Be careful what you wish for with headliners. Sometimes its better to have your favourites in the Electric Arena instead, usually better sound, and you don't have to worry about the rain!

ghostdancer

bodhrandude wrote: »

'small headliner' Sure they headlined the EA on Sunday night in 2015, thats the Picnic's second largest stage.

and it was half empty and they've had nothing out since then.
they're much smaller and more niche than most headliners of recent years.

Seathrun66

ghostdancer wrote: »

bodhrandude wrote: »

'small headliner' Sure they headlined the EA on Sunday night in 2015, thats the Picnic's second largest stage.

and it was half empty and they've had nothing out since then.
they're much smaller and more niche than most headliners of recent years.

No, it wasn't. About 80/90% full I'd estimate. And that was up against a post-Glastonbury Florence & the Machine. Have a look at the online videos of the set.

And are they really smaller & more niche than Interpol & A Tribe Called Quest? I'd argue not.

ghostdancer

Seathrun66 wrote: »

No, it wasn't. About 80/90% full I'd estimate. And that was up against a post-Glastonbury Florence & the Machine. Have a look at the online videos of the set.

And are they really smaller & more niche than Interpol & A Tribe Called Quest? I'd argue not.

I said most, not all. they're smaller and more niche than loads of recent headliners, even some recent main stages subs.

it certainly wasn't anywhere near that full, loads of room at the back and sides. I had to leave for a few minutes to meet someone outside the tent after a few songs, and got right back up near the front with ease.

Seathrun66

ghostdancer wrote: »

Seathrun66 wrote: »

No, it wasn't. About 80/90% full I'd estimate. And that was up against a post-Glastonbury Florence & the Machine. Have a look at the online videos of the set.

And are they really smaller & more niche than Interpol & A Tribe Called Quest? I'd argue not.

I said most, not all. they're smaller and more niche than loads of recent headliners, even some recent main stages subs.

it certainly wasn't anywhere near that full, loads of room at the back and sides. I had to leave for a few minutes to meet someone outside the tent after a few songs, and got right back up near the front with ease.

They sub-headlined Glastonbury last year man. The other subs were Beck & Foals. They're on the verge of headlining the same festival (possibly 2020) and are far from niche. Unless they produce a dud or Parker gives up they'll be enormous very soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFvXBfGUgtU

BullBlackNova

I'd say Tame Impala would be a solid bet for a headliner if they released an album between now and the start of next summer. That said, I'd be surprised if they weren't the smallest of the 3 headliners, but would be ideal for the Friday night the way that Foals, Blondie, Pet Shop Boys have done in the past, or subbing the Sunday the way that Beck did.

Fact is, there just aren't a huge amount of headline level bands doing the rounds who haven't played recently. Many of those who haven't played are out of the price range of most festivals - Glasto and Coachella the obvious exception here - so I think we can expect a few more leftfield options, some legacy acts, reunions, etc and some bands that may seem a bit on the smaller side getting bumped up, like Tame Impala, Foals, etc.

Festival organisers (including Melvin Benn, whoever does the bookings for Bestival - I'm blanking right now - and the Eavises) have all made similar comments over the last 2/3 years so don't be in the least bit surprised to be looking at some festival bills and seeing a gamble or two in the top tier acts. Some (like Foals and Tame Impala) will pay off, others won't and will look ridiculous in retrospect but it's either that or repeat headline acts every 3/4 years because there's just nobody else to get.

MadYaker

MJohnston wrote: »

Be careful what you wish for with headliners. Sometimes its better to have your favourites in the Electric Arena instead, usually better sound, and you don't have to worry about the rain!

The sound in the EA is often terrible imo.

ghostdancer

Seathrun66 wrote: »

They sub-headlined Glastonbury last year man. The other subs were Beck & Foals. They're on the verge of headlining the same festival (possibly 2020) and are far from niche. Unless they produce a dud or Parker gives up they'll be enormous very soon.youtube]zFvXBfGUgtU[/youtube]

yeah, I was there. they were a last-minute emergency booking (only booked 2 weeks before they were announced) and on efestivals were pretty unanimously considered a small sub. Beck went down like a lead balloon and loads of people thought that Ellie Goulding should have subbed as she is much more popular than Beck, does much bigger gigs than him in the UK, better chart success, and a better fit for Coldplay who were playing afterwards.
Paul Weller subbed the previous year...

2020 is the 50th anniversary and extremely unlikely they'll headline then. 2019 is possible, if they have a big album but they're probably behind lots of bands in the pecking order.

Blur, Florence, Noel Gallagher, LCD Soundsystem, Lana del Rey and The xx have all done bigger gigs/tours here and had higher charting albums.
Interpol, Sam Smith and New Order's most recent albums charted higher than Currents.
Duran Duran and Underworld, both of whom I'd consider small headliners too, have years of success behind them.

I'm sure they'd be good, but I can't see how anyone can claim that they're not a small headliner compared to most recent headliners.
if they have a big succesful album out before next summer, then that might change, but they haven't yet.

ghostdancer

BullBlackNova wrote: »

Festival organisers (including Melvin Benn, whoever does the bookings for Bestival - I'm blanking right now - and the Eavises)

Rob da Bank

BullBlackNova

ghostdancer wrote: »

Rob da Bank

That's the one!

I can't find the articles I was looking for, but here's a Q&A with Melvin Benn, Rob da Bank and Natasha Haddad (Latitude) talking about headliners of the future and it's pretty clear that they're all aware that there's a shortage of people right now.

Article is from 2015 so some of the names are a bit out of date (Maccabees having split for e.g.) but it's still interesting given the topic.

http://diymag.com/2015/06/19/who-are-the-headliners-of-the-future-festival-organisers-look-ahead

FYI - nobody mentions Tame Impala But it does largely seem to be British acts.

Rob da Bank...

The Maccabees would be a good one that I would happily have headlining. We had Foals last year, who headlined the Saturday night, and we had a lot of people going “ooo, do you think they’re big enough blah blah blah”. I want to be braver with our line up, so I think having a band like The Maccabees headline Bestival - obviously they’ve been around a long time, but I don’t think they’ve done a big festival headline yet. So The Maccabees would be good.

...

But, overall, I think my message is that I’m trying to be brave with younger headliners, sometimes, and I’m not necessarily using tried and tested headliners.

Paddy2012

ghostdancer wrote: »

Seathrun66 wrote: »

They sub-headlined Glastonbury last year man. The other subs were Beck & Foals. They're on the verge of headlining the same festival (possibly 2020) and are far from niche. Unless they produce a dud or Parker gives up they'll be enormous very soon.youtube]zFvXBfGUgtU[/youtube]

yeah, I was there. they were a last-minute emergency booking (only booked 2 weeks before they were announced) and on efestivals were pretty unanimously considered a small sub. Beck went down like a lead balloon and loads of people thought that Ellie Goulding should have subbed as she is much more popular than Beck, does much bigger gigs than him in the UK, better chart success, and a better fit for Coldplay who were playing afterwards.
Paul Weller subbed the previous year...

2020 is the 50th anniversary and extremely unlikely they'll headline then. 2019 is possible, if they have a big album but they're probably behind lots of bands in the pecking order.

Blur, Florence, Noel Gallagher, LCD Soundsystem, Lana del Rey and The xx have all done bigger gigs/tours here and had higher charting albums.
Interpol, Sam Smith and New Order's most recent albums charted higher than Currents.
Duran Duran and Underworld, both of whom I'd consider small headliners too, have years of success behind them.

I'm sure they'd be good, but I can't see how anyone can claim that they're not a small headliner compared to most recent headliners.
if they have a big succesful album out before next summer, then that might change, but they haven't yet.

Yeah, it was a shame about Becks crowd as he was pretty great but I think Glasto like having different genre subs to prevent people camping out at the main stage (not that it helps). I think Tame Impala are about on the same level as The XX, Currents might not have charted as well as their last album but it's sold more copies (in the UK at least) and I bet a large sum that they'll headline Coachella on their next album (where they previously subbed AC/DC).

ghostdancer

Paddy2012 wrote: »

Yeah, it was a shame about Becks crowd as he was pretty great but I think Glasto like having different genre subs to prevent people camping out at the main stage (not that it helps). I think Tame Impala are about on the same level as The XX, Currents might not have charted as well as their last album but it's sold more copies (in the UK at least) and I bet a large sum that they'll headline Coachella on their next album (where they previously subbed AC/DC).

it's been out 18 months longer than theirs to rack up more sales, although neither sales tallies are particularly impressive.

Seathrun66

BullBlackNova wrote: »

I'd say Tame Impala would be a solid bet for a headliner if they released an album between now and the start of next summer. That said, I'd be surprised if they weren't the smallest of the 3 headliners, but would be ideal for the Friday night the way that Foals, Blondie, Pet Shop Boys have done in the past, or subbing the Sunday the way that Beck did.

Fact is, there just aren't a huge amount of headline level bands doing the rounds who haven't played recently. Many of those who haven't played are out of the price range of most festivals - Glasto and Coachella the obvious exception here - so I think we can expect a few more leftfield options, some legacy acts, reunions, etc and some bands that may seem a bit on the smaller side getting bumped up, like Tame Impala, Foals, etc.

Festival organisers (including Melvin Benn, whoever does the bookings for Bestival - I'm blanking right now - and the Eavises) have all made similar comments over the last 2/3 years so don't be in the least bit surprised to be looking at some festival bills and seeing a gamble or two in the top tier acts. Some (like Foals and Tame Impala) will pay off, others won't and will look ridiculous in retrospect but it's either that or repeat headline acts every 3/4 years because there's just nobody else to get.

EP in terms of capacity is now in the top twenty festivals on the planet. Bar U2 or the Stones there are no acts that they can't book. What FR can't do is book three huge headliners but they can definitely stretch to two biggies as in 2015 (Blur & Florence) or 2013 (Bjork & Arctic Monkeys). Radiohead, for example, have played far smaller festivals than EP in the past two years.

In terms of a shortage of future headliners this came from the out-of-touch Harvey Goldsmith in May 2015 who said that festivals would die out due to a lack of big bands to replace the Stones & Fleetwood Mac. Michael Eavis disagreed with him and said they could line up prospective headliners for five years in advance. For what it's worth I believe that the likes of Foals & Tame Impala are ready to headline big festivals and there are others on the way up who can do this in 5/6 years. In the past decade we've seen Florence, The XX, LCD, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys & several others move up to headlining slots. And we'll see many more in the near future.

MadYaker

You'd wonder about the festivals ability to continue booking big name acts who probably get more expensive every year when the festival haven't increased their ticket price in years. I know they've increased the capacity slightly but if they want to book the Arctic Monkeys for next year their fee will surely have gone up from 2013 but the ticket price hasn't changed.

scruff monkey

Seathrun66 wrote: »

EP in terms of capacity is now in the top twenty festivals on the planet.

Really? I'd doubt that, i'd be surprised if it's even in the top 40.

Seathrun66

ghostdancer wrote: »

Seathrun66 wrote: »

They sub-headlined Glastonbury last year man. The other subs were Beck & Foals. They're on the verge of headlining the same festival (possibly 2020) and are far from niche. Unless they produce a dud or Parker gives up they'll be enormous very soon.youtube]zFvXBfGUgtU[/youtube]

yeah, I was there. they were a last-minute emergency booking (only booked 2 weeks before they were announced) and on efestivals were pretty unanimously considered a small sub. Beck went down like a lead balloon and loads of people thought that Ellie Goulding should have subbed as she is much more popular than Beck, does much bigger gigs than him in the UK, better chart success, and a better fit for Coldplay who were playing afterwards.
Paul Weller subbed the previous year...

2020 is the 50th anniversary and extremely unlikely they'll headline then. 2019 is possible, if they have a big album but they're probably behind lots of bands in the pecking order.

Blur, Florence, Noel Gallagher, LCD Soundsystem, Lana del Rey and The xx have all done bigger gigs/tours here and had higher charting albums.
Interpol, Sam Smith and New Order's most recent albums charted higher than Currents.
Duran Duran and Underworld, both of whom I'd consider small headliners too, have years of success behind them.

I'm sure they'd be good, but I can't see how anyone can claim that they're not a small headliner compared to most recent headliners.
if they have a big succesful album out before next summer, then that might change, but they haven't yet.

My Response (seems to be a glitch here)

Not an emergency announcement but a late announcement as with Damon Albarn. They were in the middle of a festival tour. And did you see the crowd they got at Glasto? I'm puzzled how you'd see them as incapable of drawing a large audience at EP.

LCD have never played large venues in Ireland bar the EP gigs. Though they easily can. Before EP Lana del Rey never played a bigger gig than Vicar Street in Ireland as far as I'm aware. Tame Impala have headlined Forbidden Fruit. And no, I'm not their tour agent.
Most of the bands you mentioned are indeed bigger than TI, but I'd wager they'd pull a huge crowd closing the main stage and I'd urge you not to dismiss them as potential headliners.

I agree re 2020, forgot it was the anniversary and you're right, they'll have some monster acts then. Headliners may already be in place, or on standby, for 2019.

BullBlackNova

Seathrun66 wrote: »

EP in terms of capacity is now in the top twenty festivals on the planet. Bar U2 or the Stones there are no acts that they can't book. What FR can't do is book three huge headliners but they can definitely stretch to two biggies as in 2015 (Blur & Florence) or 2013 (Bjork & Arctic Monkeys). Radiohead, for example, have played far smaller festivals than EP in the past two years.

In terms of a shortage of future headliners this came from the out-of-touch Harvey Goldsmith in May 2015 who said that festivals would die out due to a lack of big bands to replace the Stones & Fleetwood Mac. Michael Eavis disagreed with him and said they could line up prospective headliners for five years in advance. For what it's worth I believe that the likes of Foals & Tame Impala are ready to headline big festivals and there are others on the way up who can do this in 5/6 years. In the past decade we've seen Florence, The XX, LCD, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys & several others move up to headlining slots. And we'll see many more in the near future.

You're spot on with everything you said here, but it doesn't change any of what I said either tbf.

EP always does well in terms of attracting the biggest acts on the go and that won't change. You have a clutch of bands (say 20-30) who are undisputed headline status at any festival. EP has probably had most of these already, say with the exception of like Muse, Radiohead and a few more.

There are a few other acts who will do Glasto and Coachella but not necessarily other festivals (let's say Beyonce, U2, Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney) because of the sales boost and publicity that you get. Glasto negotiates substantially lower fees than other festivals because of the prestige and the massive sales boost that comes with it. No other festival can promise that with the exception of Coachella.

Then you've the few question marks like Adele or Ed Sheeran who are definitely big enough but who don't necessarily do a lot of festivals.

So if we exclude the likes of Blur, Florence, Arctic Monkeys, Killers, etc because they've played before, then we're really left with a small group. Hence why I said, it's either repeat headliners (which I don't think people have an issue with) or new acts, some of whom could be contentious, like Foals, Tame Impala, etc.

ghostdancer

Seathrun66 wrote: »

My Response (seems to be a glitch here)

Not an emergency announcement but a late announcement as with Damon Albarn. They were in the middle of a festival tour. And did you see the crowd they got at Glasto? I'm puzzled how you'd see them as incapable of drawing a large audience at EP.

LCD have never played large venues in Ireland bar the EP gigs. Though they easily can. Before EP Lana del Rey never played a bigger gig than Vicar Street in Ireland as far as I'm aware. Tame Impala have headlined Forbidden Fruit. And no, I'm not their tour agent.
Most of the bands you mentioned are indeed bigger than TI, but I'd wager they'd pull a huge crowd closing the main stage and I'd urge you not to dismiss them as potential headliners.

I agree re 2020, forgot it was the anniversary and you're right, they'll have some monster acts then. Headliners may already be in place, or on standby, for 2019.

I never said they wouldn't draw a large crowd or dismissed them as potential headliners.
i said if they are booked, they'd be a small headliner, as most of the recent headliners are much bigger and more successful by various metrics.

Seathrun66

scruff monkey wrote: »

Seathrun66 wrote: »

EP in terms of capacity is now in the top twenty festivals on the planet.

Really?   I'd doubt that, i'd be surprised if it's even in the top 40.

Not many bigger music fests in Europe (Glasto, Reading/Leeds, Sziget, Open'er, Roskilde, Werchter, Tomorrowland and a couple of others). Only Coachella in the US is bigger as far as I'm aware. And you can discount those festivals that add up the daily attendances over a week or two to make a large total. Many festivals with big names (Exit, Primavera) are a lot smaller and Lollapalooza is 5,000 less.

Seathrun66

BullBlackNova wrote: »

Seathrun66 wrote: »

EP in terms of capacity is now in the top twenty festivals on the planet. Bar U2 or the Stones there are no acts that they can't book. What FR can't do is book three huge headliners but they can definitely stretch to two biggies as in 2015 (Blur & Florence) or 2013 (Bjork & Arctic Monkeys). Radiohead, for example, have played far smaller festivals than EP in the past two years.

In terms of a shortage of future headliners this came from the out-of-touch Harvey Goldsmith in May 2015 who said that festivals would die out due to a lack of big bands to replace the Stones & Fleetwood Mac. Michael Eavis disagreed with him and said they could line up prospective headliners for five years in advance. For what it's worth I believe that the likes of Foals & Tame Impala are ready to headline big festivals and there are others on the way up who can do this in 5/6 years. In the past decade we've seen Florence, The XX, LCD, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys & several others move up to headlining slots. And we'll see many more in the near future.

You're spot on with everything you said here, but it doesn't change any of what I said either tbf.

EP always does well in terms of attracting the biggest acts on the go and that won't change. You have a clutch of bands (say 20-30) who are undisputed headline status at any festival. EP has probably had most of these already, say with the exception of like Muse, Radiohead and a few more.

There are a few other acts who will do Glasto and Coachella but not necessarily other festivals (let's say Beyonce, U2, Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney) because of the sales boost and publicity that you get. Glasto negotiates substantially lower fees than other festivals because of the prestige and the massive sales boost that comes with it. No other festival can promise that with the exception of Coachella.

Then you've the few question marks like Adele or Ed Sheeran who are definitely big enough but who don't necessarily do a lot of festivals.

So if we exclude the likes of Blur, Florence, Arctic Monkeys, Killers, etc because they've played before, then we're really left with a small group. Hence why I said, it's either repeat headliners (which I don't think people have an issue with) or new acts, some of whom could be contentious, like Foals, Tame Impala, etc.

And I also agree with all that you say there. So, changing tack, other than the two you mentioned who are future headlining young acts? We've lost the Maccabees & Wild Beasts who were an outside shot. Who else - Wolf Alice, Royal Blood, Stormzy, Frank Ocean, Skepta, The 1975? Bar Frank, none of whom greatly inspire me.

Thundercats Ho

I'd imagine The National will be one of the headliners.

ghostdancer

Seathrun66 wrote: »

And I also agree with all that you say there. So, changing tack, other than the two you mentioned who are future headlining young acts? We've lost the Maccabees & Wild Beasts who were an outside shot. Who else - Wolf Alice, Royal Blood, Stormzy, Frank Ocean, Skepta, The 1975? Bar Frank, none of whom greatly inspire me.

Lorde, Years & Years and Chvrches maybe?
e: Bastille too.

Thundercats Ho

ghostdancer wrote: »

Lorde, Years & Years and Chvrches maybe?

I'd have a raised eyebrow if any of those even headlined the EA tbh.
Saying that, Chvrches have packed the tent out of it when they played.

The other 2 would have mass appeal and are main stage acts, but aren't headliners.
I'm pretty out of touch though, so what do I know.

MJohnston

Lorde is a definite headliner tbf

ghostdancer

Thundercats Ho wrote: »

I'd have a raised eyebrow if any of those even headlined the EA tbh.
Saying that, Chvrches have packed the tent out of it when they played.

The other 2 would have mass appeal and are main stage acts, but aren't headliners.
I'm pretty out of touch though, so what do I know.

I'm presuming we're talking about potentially in the future, if they keep on the same trajectory. ie. another couple of years/albums.
I definitely don't see them as headliners now either. Lorde maybe, in the same way that LdR and Sam Smith were headliners...

Seathrun66

ghostdancer wrote: »

Thundercats Ho wrote: »

I'd have a raised eyebrow if any of those even headlined the EA tbh.
Saying that, Chvrches have packed the tent out of it when they played.

The other 2 would have mass appeal and are main stage acts, but aren't headliners.
I'm pretty out of touch though, so what do I know.

I'm presuming we're talking about potentially in the future, if they keep on the same trajectory. ie. another couple of years/albums.
I definitely don't see them as headliners now either. Lorde maybe, in the same way that LdR and Sam Smith were headliners...

Yeah, I reckon Lorde is already there, number 1 album in the US counts for a lot.