The crush occurred after a large group of fans outside the venue attempted to force their way into the Academy, with the show going on to be cancelled.

A total of eight people were removed from the scene by ambulance with crush-related injuries, with two others being treated at the scene.

Police were called to the venue at around 9:30pm on the night of the 16th, after reports that large numbers of people were gathered outside the venue, which normally has a capacity of around 5,000 people, and were attempting to force entry into the show.  Scenes outside the venue were heated, with some witnesses estimating that up to 1,000 people had gathered without tickets outside the doors, clashing with security and  police, adn even trying to force their way through locked doors.

The concert was called off within just ten minutes of it having started, with Asake telling the crowd, “They said outside is fucked up already, so we have to end the show. I don’t know why. It’s not me.”

A further announcement from the team on stage went on to tell the crowd that the situation outside had become severe, with an estimated 3, 000 people attempting to enter the building.   The announcement was followed by booing from the crowd.

After the crush, Asake took to his Instagram with this message: “My heart is with those who were injured last night and caused any form of discomfort. I pray you get well soonest. I am also in the process of reaching out to individuals. I still do not have the full brief from the venue management themselves as to what led to the disruption at the entrance of The Brixton Academy, but we are thankful that all was peaceful in the end. For my people who enjoyed the beginning of my performance, I am sorry that it was cut short. Thank you for your unbelievable love London. I love you too much! I’m looking forward to seeing you again in a bit!”

Solomon Smith, who was present at the show, took to twitter to share his feelings:

Not Asake’s fault at all, it was more people who didn’t have tickets turned up with fake tickets… #Asake #Brixton pic.twitter.com/dxDzfCEUY7

— Solomon Smith (@sollysworld) December 15, 2022

The tragic event comes after the release of the Lagos musician’s debut album, Mr Money with the Vibe, in early September this year.  Since the release, the album has climbed to become the highest charting debut Nigerian album of all time on the Billboard 200 list, making it to No. 66 in September.

Following the death of one of the victims of Thursday night’s crush, a 33-year-old east London woman who was taken to hospital following the show, Asake is said to be “devastated”, saying on his Instagram, “I am overwhelmed with grief and could never have imagined anything like this happening”.

Police and the venue management are currently working together on a debrief as to why the situation escalated with such tragic consequences.

This is What We Do was mixed by sound engineer and long-time Leftfield collaborator Adam Wren, and its cover features artwork by photographer Steve McCurry.  The album marks a new direction for the duo in terms of collaborations, with tracks featuring contributions from spoken word poet Lemn Sissay (My Name Is Why, Something Dark), Earl 16 and Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten.

The new album release has already garnered praise from the likes of Mojo, the Observer, DJ Mag and Uncut, among others, and is currently enjoying a stint as Rough Trade’s Album of the Month.

The duo are scheduled to tour the UK during the spring of next year, with a slew of new dates having been announced.  With their reputation as one of the founding names in UK electronica, not to mention outstanding live performances, the new tour is sure to be one not to miss.  It will kick off with a show at London’s Steelyard venue on May 18th, and from there make the rounds of Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow, among other venues (you can check out full dates and a detailed list of venues and shows at the bottom of this article).

Leftfield, otherwise known as the duo of Neil Barnes and Paul Daley, have been staple names on the UK electronic scene since the 1990s, and have released tracks featuring vocal contributions from the likes of Johnny Rotten, Toni Halliday, Djum Djum and Cheshire Cat.  Their style has been described as a fusion of house, dub and reggae.  After a period without recording from 2002 to 2010, Leftfield was revived by Barnes, who went on to produce tracks under the Leftfield name without Paul Daley.

Check out the official video for “Pulse“, the first single from This is What We Do.

You can pick up tickets for Leftfield’s upcoming 2023 tour here, and check out full dates and venues below.

18/05/2023 – The Steelyard – London, GB
19/05 – The Century – Manchester, GB
20/05 – The Century – Manchester, GB
25/05 – Marble Factory – Bristol, GB
26/05 – The Great Hall – Cardiff, GB
27/05 – O2 Academy – Bournemouth, GB
01/06 – Barrowland Ballroom – Glasgow, GB
02/06 – Newcastle NX – Newcastle Upon Tyne, GB
03/06 – Wolverhamptom Civic – Wolverhampton, GB
08/06 – O2 Academy Sheffield – Sheffield, GB
09/06 – University of East Anglia – Norwich, GB

Eilish shares headlining company with Sam Fender, whose album, Seventeen Down Under, was released earlier this year to resounding acclaim, landing him the Brit Award for Best British Alternative/ Rock Act.

Saturday’s Reading headliners, Imagine Dragons, have already accrued musical fame since the pop-rockers released “Radioactive”, a song that has clocked a grand total of 87 weeks on the Billboard music charts since its debut.

Also playing at the festivals are Wet Leg, Slowthai, Steve Lacey, Muna, Baby Queen, Yung Lean, Loyle Carner, Bicep and more, with many other names still to be announced.

Tickets for the festivals went on sale at 9am on Monday, 12th December.

2022’s Leeds festival lineup played host to the likes of Dave, Little Simz, Halsey, Run the Jewels and many others, with Reading, as always, providing a venue for the same list of artists on different days to Leeds.

The Reading Festival will be held on Little John’s Farm on Richfield Avenue, central Reading, whilst the Leeds event takes place in the historic grounds of Bramham Park near Wetherby.  Weekend tickets, including camping, are available, along with standard day tickets.

The Reading Festival itself boasts the claim of being one of the oldest still-existing pop music festivals in the world, and was initially conceived as the National Jazz Festival in 1961.  Since the late nineties, however, the festival has focused heavily around rock, alternative, indie, punk and metal, with an increasing hip hop presence (past headliners have included the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Post Malone).

In addition to its

Tickets for Reading Festival are now on sale here.  Alternatively, you can get tickets for the Leeds event here.

Another “Skinny Ape” performance is scheduled to take place on the 17th December in Time Square.

The London show will be directed by artist and Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett, and Emmy-nominated Fx Goby (To Build a Fire, En Tus Brazos, Back to the Moon).  Both it and its New York counterpart are created by Nexus Studios, using Google’s ARCore Geospatial API to transform the physical performance venues.

Check out the trailer for the immersive experience, in which we catch a first glimpse of the larger-than-life animated characters roaming the city streets.

In a press release talking about the new shows, Gorillaz bassist Murdoc Niccals said, “Thanks to the techies at Google, we’ve created the music video event of the century, so don your pink robes and come see Gorillaz like you’ve never seen us before. The future is nigh!”

“Skinny Ape” is the fourth single from Gorillaz’ new album, Cracker Island, scheduled for release 24th February 2023 on Gorilaz Productions, Parlophone and Warner records.  The new album will be the eighth full studio album by the English virtual band.  The “Skinny Ape” single was debuted on Gorillaz’ 2022 World Tour, and has already become a firm favourite with fans.

The band are in good company on the album, which features contributions from Stevie Nicks, Adeleye Omotayo, Thundercat, Tame Impala, Bad Bunny, Bootie Brown and Beck.  Eight-time Grammy-award-winning multi-instrumentalist/ singer-songwriter Greg Kurstin produced the album, along with Gorillaz and Remi Kabaka Jr.  Cracker Island’s ten tracks were recorded in London and Los Angeles earlier this year.

You can preorder the new album here, and check out the official audio for new single “Skinny Ape” below.

Rolling Loud Rotterdam is hosted by Woo Ha! and will kick off in the summer of 2023 at the Rotterdam Ahoy venue, located in the heart of what is The Netherlands’ second largest city and one of Europe’s primary seaports.  With the announcement of more acts to follow, the Rotterdam event is schedules to take place on June 30th – July 1st, 2023.  You can check the line-up as it stands so far, and grab pre-sale tickets, here.

Travis Scott will go on to headline Rolling Sound Portugal, which, this year, takes to the picturesque beaches of Portimao on the Algarve coast as a venue.  With announcements of the full lineup for the event to follow soon, presale tickets are currently available here.  The festival will take place on 5th – 7th July, 2023.

2023 looks to be a busy year for Rolling Loud’s organizers, as in addition to the Rotterdam and Portugal dates, Rolling Loud has events planned for Thialand in April, and California in March.  The California event will be headlined by Travis Scott, Future, and Playboy Carti.  July will also see the eight annual Rolling Sound flagship event returning to Miami on July 21st – 23rd.

Check out footage of Travis Scott performing “Stargazing”, live at Miami’s Rolling Loud in 2019.

Since its inception in 2015 by founders Matt Zingler and Tariq Charif, Rolling loud has earned global acclaim from critics and festival-lovers alike, with Variety calling the event “The biggest hip-hop festival in the country”, and Forbes describing it as “a lifestyle brand. They are more than just the shows. They have built a community with their consumers and are building new channels to maintain continuity”.  The festival’s 2022 headliners in the flagship Miami event included the likes of Kid Cudi, Kendrick Lamar and Future.  September 2022 brought the first ever Rolling Loud Toronto, where Future was joined by Wizkid and Dave, and Rolling Loud New York, where Nicki Minaj, Asap Rocky and Future took headlining slots.

For full details on all of Rolling Loud’s upcoming 2023 events, check out their website here.

Now the band have collaborated with Eric Barone, creator of video games such as Stardew Valley, on a new video for one of the album’s new tracks, the dreamy “Many Mirrors”.  Barone, already a fan of Alvvays, heard “Many Mirrors” and was inspired to create a video based on old-school side-scrolling video games.

Discussing the process of making the video, Eric Barone said, “It’s not every day I get an email from a cool band like Alvvays. When I learned they were fans of Stardew Valley, it felt like a real honor. The whole album is fantastic, but the song “Many Mirrors” had a pure, adventurous energy to it that really resonated with me. I took that feeling, and used it to create a visual world in my mind’s eye… and that’s what ultimately turned into this video. I had a lot of fun making it, and I’m really happy to be able to contribute, in a small way, to the band’s story!”

You can watch the video here.

Originating back in 2011 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, the band gained attention with 2014’s debut Alvvays, whilst 2017’s sophomore album Antisocialites further honed their sound.  The release of the second album was followed by an extensive North American tour, on which the group often played slots supporting The National.  The road to the release of their third album, after the tour, was not an easy one – lead singer Molly Rankin’s apartment was burgled shortly after work began on new songs, and a recorder containing several demos was stolen.  This was closely followed by a basement flood, which threatened to destroy all of the band’s gear.  Despite these setbacks, however, Alvvays renewed efforts on a third album in October 2021, and Blue Rev was recorded in a Los Angeles studio with producer Shawn Everett.  The album was released almost a year later.

The group have also added UK and European tour dates to their upcoming 2023 tour.  Check out more, and buy tickets, here.  Full dates and venues for the UK and Europe are listed below:

24/05/2022 – o2 Kentish Town Forum – London, UK
27/05 – Dot to Dot Festival – Bristol, UK
28/05 – Dot to Dot Festival – Nottingham, UK
30/05 – New Century – Manchester, UK
31/05 – Galvanizers – Glasgow, UK
02/06 – Primavera Sound – Barcelona, ES
04/06 – Trabendo – Paris, FR
05/06 – Botanique – Brusselles, BE
06/06 – Astra Kulturhaus – Berlin, DE
09/06 – Primavera Sound – Madrid, ES

The tour announcement comes after Pixies released their eighth full studio album, Doggerel, in September.  The album came out on the Infectious Music label, to largely positive critical response.  The release was preceded by the singles “There’s a Moon On”, “Vault of Heaven” and “Dregs of the Wine”.  The recording process for the new album was also filmed, becoming a short documentary on the band that was released in June 2022.

In a recent press release discussing the new album, guitarist Joey Santiago said, “This time around we have grown.  We no longer have under two-minute songs.  We have little breaks, more conventional arrangements but still our twists in there.”

Vocalist/ guitarist Black Francis went on to add, “We’re trying to do things that are very big and bold and orchestrated.  The punky stuff, I really like playing it but you just cannot artificially create that shit.  There’s another way to do this, there’s other things we can be doing with this extra special energy we’re encountering.”

The new album also marks the first songwriting credits for Joey Santiago on two of its tracks, “Dregs of the Wine” and “Pagan Man”.  Vocalist/ guitarist Black Francis said of “Pagan Man“, the album’s final song, “I was not in the mood to compose a lyric because I was already spent, if you will. So Joey wrote the lyric.”  He went on to explain that the song was, “an unfinished bit of music that the producer kept insisting that we try again”.  Doggerel was recorded in Vermont’s Guildford Sound, an eco-friendly recording studio, with the basis for many songs being the pre-recorded demos Black Francis had created in the time following the band’s seventh album release, 2019’s Beneath the Eyrie.

Check out footage of the band performing their new single, “There’s a Moon On”, live from Manchester’s Band on the Wall earlier this year.

Tickets for the 2023 UK and European tour are now on sale here.

You can also find full dates and locations for the tour below:

21/02/2023 – Cirkus – Stockholm, SE
22/02 – Sentrum Scene – Oslo, NO
25/02 – DR Koncerthuset – Kobenhavn S, DE
26/02 – Columbiahalle – Berlin, DE
27/02 – Grosse Freiheit 36 – Hamburg, DE
28/02 – Tonhalle – Munich, DE
03/03 – Oosterpoort – Groningen, NE
04/03 – AMARE – Den Haag, NE
05/03 – Tivoli Vredenburg – Utrecht, NE
07/03 – Forest National – Bruxelles, BE
09/03 – Sant Jordi Club – Barcelona, ES
10/03 – WiZink Centre – Madrid, ES
11/03 – Coliseum – A Coruna, ES
13/03 – Campo Pequeno – Lisbon, PT
15/03  -L’Olympia – Paris, FR
16/03 – L’Olympia – Paris, FR
17/03 – Forum Birmingham – Birmingham, UK
18/03 – Cardiff International Arena – Cardiff, UK
20/03 – Roundhouse – London, UK
21/03 – Roundhouse – London, UK

Hailed as the founders of goth rock, Christian Death are Los Angeles trio Maitri, Valor Kand and Ryan Paolilli.  The provocative band have earned themselves a reputation as fiercely confrontational towards organized religion and conventional morality over the years, from the time of their debut album Only Theatre of Pain in 1982.

This will not be the band’s first stint in the UK.  In the mid-Eighties, Christian Death moved to London, where they went on to record some of their most confrontational work, rife with the shock value that they have come to be known for.  There, they also put out single “Church of No Return”, a track that reached No. 12 on the UK Independant Chart and attracted mainstream attention for the band from the likes of MTV, VH1, Super Channel, the BBC and a host of other European broadcasting shows.  Meanwhile, during the same period in the USA, album releases like Sex and Drugs and Jesus Christ, whose album art included a polarizing image of Jesus Christ shooting heroin, incited burnings of the band’s material by Christian groups.

The controversy that has marked their careers has by no means slowed the band down.  2022 marked the release of Christian Death’s 17th studio album, Evil Becomes Rule, on which they hone their signature mix of gothic rock and post-punk.  Previous festival appearances for the band have included Hellfest Open Air and Cloak and Dagger Festival.

Check out the band performing “Romeo’s Distress” live:

You can find more details about Tomorrow’s Ghosts ‘Spring Gathering’, along with ticket info and the full lineup, here.

Since the Peaches’ hiatus as a band began in 2004, both Green and Dawson have been working on their respective solo projects, with Green releasing seven solo albums, as well as a film, Adam Green’s Aladdin, in 2016.  Kimya Dawson continued to tour in her own right, and put out several studio albums, among them 2006’s critically acclaimed Remember That I Love You on K Records.

Talking about the reunion, Adam and Kimya said, “We’re excited to be back, older and moldier.  Let’s see if we still got it!  Once a Moldy Peach always a Moldy Peach.”

After several new US dates, the Peaches have announced that they will play the Roundhouse in London on May 29th.  Following that, they will go on to feature as part of the Primavera Sound lineup in Barcelona and Madrid in June.  You can read more about the full Primavera lineup and dates here.

Check out the Moldy Peaches performing “I forgot” in Reading in 2002.

Tickets for the Peaches’ Roundhouse show will go on sale Friday, December 2nd, at 10:00am UK time.  You can follow the link here to buy.

Full European tour dates for 2023 are below:

29/05/2023 – Roundhouse – London, UK
02/ 06 – Primavera – Barcelona, ES
09/ 06 – Primavera – Madrid, ES

The tour announcement follows the February release of Cult of Luna’s latest album, The Long Road North, on Metal Blade Records earlier this year.  The release made it to No. 14 on the German albums chart.

The band have been releasing music for over two decades, and the new album is no exception to their dense, dynamic sound.  In a recent press release, vocalist/ guitarist Johannes Persson opened up about the group’s direction on The Long Road North, saying “It’s a big and cinematic-sounding album. I think one of the reasons why we have been able to be so productive the last couple of years is that we have been consistently writing from the heart. We have let our instincts guide us, and I think it’s getting clearer where we are heading”.  Persson went on to describe the new album as a “long road home”.

Reflecting back on the band’s 2022 tour and looking forward to the upcoming one, he said, “not knowing what to expect when we got out from our unexpected and involuntary hiatus, we were blown away by the numbers of people that came to see us. The love we received was truly moving and it felt like the tour just started when it was over. But time moves quickly and soon it’s time to get out again. In these chaotic conditions that the world is in right now, we can’t do much than trust in music as a rewarding constant. A tool of power and comfort. We hope to see you out there next year”.

Check out footage from the band’s 2022 tour here:

The Long Road North also features appearances from Mariam Wallentin of Swedish duo Wildbirds and Peacedrums, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz of French pop-rock band Phoenix, and Composer Colin Stetson.

Tickets for the upcoming tour are now available to purchase here.

Dates and venues are:

17/03/2023 – Store Vega – Copenhagen, DK
18/03 – Huxley’s Neue Welt – Berlin, DE
19/03 – Kulturzentrum Schlachthof – Weisbaden, DE
20/03 – Tivoli Ronda – Utrecht, NL
21/03 – AB – Brussels, BE
22/03 – L’Olympia – Paris, FR
23/03 – Im Wizemann – Stuttgard, DE
24/03 – Les Docks – Lausanne, CH
25/03 – Kino Siska – Ljubljana, SO
27/03 – Arena – Grobe Halle – Vienna, AT
28/03 – Muffathalle – Munich, DE
29/03 – Roxy – Prague, PL
30/03 – Klub Studio – Krakow, PL
31/03 – Progresja – Warsaw, PL