Festival Guide: Guy Garvey's Meltdown Festival

Name: Meltdown

Where: Southbank Centre, London

When: 10th – 19th June

Headliners: Guy Garvey, Laura Marling, Richard Hawley

Also Featuring: The Staves, This Is The Kit, Lift To Experience, Femi Kuti

To Sum Up: If you’re looking for a festival with a difference, Meltdown may be the one for you. No fields, no mud, proper toilets… And, most importantly, an eclectic array of a huge range of artists, ranging from acoustic folk to psychedelic pop. From Friday 10th June, running through until Sunday 19th, and curated by Elbow’s Guy Garvey, there will be a huge number of individual events to choose from. With tickets sold on a single event basis, you can dip in and out of whatever you fancy, and go to as many – or few – of the fantastic options as you so desire.

How To Get There: Ideal for Londoners who will be able to head back to the luxury of their own home at the end of each day, but also extremely handy for out-of-towners, Meltdown takes place in the stunning location of The Southbank Centre, ideally situated within minutes of Waterloo station. You can also catch the Northern Line to Embankment underground, or a huge number of buses that stop on Waterloo bridge, two minutes walk away.

Gigslutz Top Tip: As well as a fantastic range of artists playing at the festival this year – including the legendary crooner Richard Hawley (16 June) and an intimate outdoor gig from This Is The Kit (11 June) – this year’s Meltdown will also pay host to incredible afro-beat act Femi Kuti (11 June) and American rock band Lift To Experience’s (supported by Gigslutz favourite Kiran Leonard) first show in fifteen years (10 June)!

Memorable Moments: 2013 saw the incredible Peaches shock crowds with her ‘Peaches Christ Superstar’ show, whilst in 2014 QOTSA front man, Josh Homme, wowed us with an enchanting one-off solo acoustic set.

What We Said Last Year: Sadly we missed last year’s Meltdown, but two years ago we couldn’t get enough of the wonderful artists James Lavelle had chosen to perform: the spellbinding Mark Lanegan, the incredibly charismatic Josh Homme and the utterly inspirational Edwyn Collins.

Did You Know? Curating the 23rd Meltdown Festival, Guy Garvey has been a long time admirer of the event – having performed there back in 2008. Previous curators include Yoko Ono, Jarvis Cocker and David Bowie.

How To Get Tickets: You can find tickets to all individual events from the Festival’s main page.

Playlist:

[spotify track=”spotify:user:gigslutz:playlist:35HBymoeaQjjOz8tcaw9pH”]

Photo Credit: Thomas Butler