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Since the majority of Devon’s dedicated music venues closed in the last 15 years, only the medium-sized Plymouth Arena remains alongside a few independent bars catering to the city’s entire music scene. In February one such venue, electronic and rave music hotspot The Depo, won BBC Radio 1 Dance’s Grassroots Venue of the Year, marking an important stage in the South West’s industry’s recovery.

Plymouth City Council have worked hard with booking agents and promoters to take advantage of the Devon coast’s mild climate and natural beauty to introduce several new entertainment ventures. Football ground Home Park has welcomed shows from the likes of Muse, Kaiser Chiefs and Elton John, while the scenic seaside patch at the Hoe has hosted multiple day-festivals over the years, with its 2025 Summer Sessions headlined by Snow Patrol, The Corrs and Pendulum.

The Summer Sessions have been cancelled for 2026 due to promoters Cuffe and Taylor scaling back their operations, but the vacuum created by its absence has opened up a new opportunity. Discovery Festival was founded with its first event last July in Dundee’s Slessor Gardens with appearances from The Human League and Tom Jones, but it has now expanded to Plymouth and Darlington. Holding three nights of live music in each city, they’ve gradually dripped out the lineup for each evening, and it’s a stroll down memory lane for many of us.

The full lineup for this year’s Discovery Festival Plymouth

The Friday is a trip of ‘90s boy-band royalty, with Five and Blue joined by The Wanted, sure to satisfy anyone with a fondness for cheesy pop music. Saturday night boasts an eclectic mix of acts with electronic pioneers Orchestral Manoeuvrers in the Dark playing after jazz-funk-pop tinkerers Level 42, ‘Kids In America’ singer Kim Wilde and more.

The bill for the Sunday was announced this Monday, capping the weekend off in style with a roster of rock and indie, old and new. Opening with recent breakthroughs Swim School, SOFY and Kid Kapichi, the afternoon moves back in time to 2000’s indie rock with Maxïmo Park. Co-headlining the day are Welsh rock legends Feeder, whose hit ‘Buck Rogers’ and its line “get a house in Devon” is fondly and loudly sung in bars across the county. The night is closed out by Pete Doherty and his group The Libertines, with a set of their indie rock anthems.

This blockbuster weekend of music comes to Plymouth’s Central Park from Friday 12th to Sunday the 14th of June. You can find tickets for the first-ever Discovery Plymouth dates, as well as the festival’s sister events in Dundee and Darlington here. Official tourist board website Visit Plymouth have also provided a map to the site in Central Park, as well as information on other entertainment around the city.

Black/Red will be the band’s first double album and, alongside their 2022 LP Torpedo, will complete a trilogy of records released by Feeder. In a statement from the band, the tracks across both Black and Red both carry the same aura of “open space, freedom and possibility” as seen with last year’s LP, but sees them connected by their optimistic energy, rather than through a specific concept.

Frontman Grant Nicholas also said on the double album “I really wanted the album to be split in two parts for the listener, CD1 and CD2, black and red rather than be one long player, almost like a musical production with an interval”.

“Making it was a very creative time for me as a writer and a real labour of love. Making the ‘Black’/’Red’ album for me personally was a musical pilgrimage and I feel the end result is undeniable Feeder.”

In celebration of their album announcement, the British rockers released 2 tracks today (October 23rd) from their upcoming album. You can find the full Black/Red tracklist and listen to “Playing With Fire” and “ELF” below.

The Black/Red tracklist is:

Black’(Disc 1)

1. “Droids”
2. “ELF”
3. “Playing With Fire”
4. “Vultures”
5. “Sahara”
6. “Hey You”
7. “The Knock”
8. “Perfume”
9. “AI.m^n”

Red (Disc 2)

1. “Sleeping Dogs Lie”
2. “Scream”
3. “Submarine”
4. “Lost In The Wilderness”
5. “Memory Loss”
6. “Unconditional”
7. “Here Comes The Hurricane”
8. “Soldiers”
9. “Ghosts On Parade”

Black/Red will be available April 5th 2024 through Big Teeth Music (via Townsend Music / Absolute Label Services) and can be pre-ordered here.

Alongside the announcement of their new album, Feeder will be hitting the road next Spring throughout the UK. Tickets will become available on Friday 27th October and can be purchased here. Additionally, pre-sale tickets are available now for those who have pre-ordered the upcoming album.

Black / Red
The New Double Album & Tour
Pre-Order Now For Early Ticket Accesshttps://t.co/OfkeTVyNjzpic.twitter.com/IkNBzXfvrH

— Feeder (@FeederHQ) October 23, 2023

Tour dates:

02/03/2024 – Junction – Cambridge
03/03 – De La Warr Pavillion – Bexhill
05/03 – Guildhall – Portsmouth
06/03 – The Foundry – Torquay
08/03 – O2 Academy – Bristol
09/03 – Great Hall – Cardiff
11/03 – O2 Academy – Oxford
13/03 – Epic – Norwich
14/03 – Engine Shed – Lincoln
16/03 – O2 Institute – Birmingham
17/03 – O2 Academy – Liverpool
19/03 – Barbican – York
20/03 – Albert Hall – Manchester
22/03 – Boiler Shop – Newcastle
23/03 – Barrowland – Glasgow
25/03 – Rock City – Nottingham
26/03 – Leadmill – Sheffield
28/03 – Roundhouse – London

The song originally started life out on an acoustic. The new single is in your face from the start, driven throughout by hard-hitting riffs and hypnotic vocals. There is a real grunge rock meets prog-rock feel to this latest release.

The track is also set to be released on the band’s 11th studio album which was announced last month. It follows on from 2019 record Tallulah and drops on March 18, 2022, via Big Teeth Music. You can hear the new track below.

Frontman Grant Nicholas Discussing “Magpie”, stated to NME “I first wrote the riff to “Magpie” at home during lockdown on my Gibson J45 acoustic. I had an almost heavy dance groove idea in my head when writing it and also when approaching the production, and how to capture this feeling and sound.”

“The lyrics were mainly written on my daily walks and runs to Finsbury Park during lockdown. It was a very observational process for me and mentions my childhood superstition for Magpie birds that I had spotted every day.”

Nicholas then went on to say “The song’s chorus touches on the frustration that I think we all feel, and especially felt at that time, about the future in general. It also addresses the impact social media and how it can affect peoples’ belief, dreams and mental wellbeing.”

“We are all kind of servants to the system in some way and our own feelings and emotions – it’s just how each person deals with them in their own way. It’s definitely one of my favourite tracks on the Torpedo album and was fun to write and record some big riffs.”

The band are then set to tour the album Torpedo next year, with dates beginning in Bexhill on April 23. The tour will then run into May and finish with a massive London gig at Brixton Academy on May 6. You can view the tour dates below.

The Feeder Tour Dates:
04/23/22 De La Warr Pavilion – Bexhill
04/24 Academy – Oxford
04/26 Guildhall – Southampton
04/27 Academy – Bristol
04/29 Academy – Manchester
04/30 Barrowlands – Glasgow
05/02 University – Newcastle
05/03 Rock City – Nottingham
05/05 Institute – Birmingham
05/0​6 Brixton Academy – London

Over 30 acts are set to take the stage at the Somerset extravaganza, which festival organisers have promised will be “a long-weekend escape of music and mayhem“. The running order has yet to be finalised, but attendees can expect sets from much-loved Newport rap iconoclasts Goldie Lookin’ Chain; Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook with his band The Light; Liverpool outfit Cast; Leeds indie five-piece The Pigeon Detectives; Hounslow Britpoppers The Bluetones; and shoegaze favourites The Boo Radleys (performing as Sice Boo and the Radleys).

The Boo Radleys will effectively be reuniting for the gig – albeit without original guitarist and songwriter Martin Carr – having split in 1999. The Wirral band, whose third LP Wake Up! topped the UK albums charts in 1995, will be led under their new moniker by singer Simon ‘Sice’ Rowbottom.

Goldie Lookin Chain (GLC)’s appearance will follow the Welsh hip-hop troupe’s delayed 20th anniversary tour, which finishes with a homecoming gig at Newport Centre on Saturday 21st June 2021. The group have kept busy during lockdown, recently recording a pandemic-related Christmas song and taking aim at conspiracists who deny the existence of the virus with the Green Day-inspired diss track Covidiot.

In an unexpected turn, GLC stalwart Adam Hussain is also taking on judging duties for Gwent’s Got Talent, an online talent competition in aid of St David’s Hospice. Speaking about his new role to the South Wales Argus, Hussain took a light-hearted swipe at another well-known talent show judge, saying:  “I’m always interested in what local talent we have in Gwent and believe in supporting our home-grown future stars. Amanda Holden does it regularly and I don’t really know what she did to qualify for the position apart from going out with Les Dennis.”

GLC’s compatriots Feeder will also be relishing an opportunity to return to the stage in 2021, having been forced to postpone the remaining tour dates to showcase their acclaimed 2019 album Tallulah. During the lockdown the band released a new video to accompany the now-iconic homemade promo for their 2001 hit Just A Day; with Just A Day 2 raising funds for PPE equipment for the NHS.

Fellow Shiine On headliners Glasvegas’ set should feature songs from their upcoming fourth album Godspeed, which is due out next April. Band frontman James Allan has suggested that the new record, their first in seven years, follows a narrative outline.

He recently told NME “The picture I imagined was that all the songs were set on one night. I wrote a couple of songs and then thought that’s maybe the way this album is supposed to be. The character basically leaves the house at the beginning of the album and starts to drive somewhere. The character’s always inside the car but there’s parts of that drive that are like a daydream, not reminiscent but the way you are when you’re out driving somewhere, your thoughts can jump from one place to the next, and then you’ll maybe notice something that has a memory in real time.”

Tickets for the 2021 Shiiine On Weekender are available now on the festival website.