Rock band Basement are the sole headliner announced so far, marking their third appearance at the festival after performing both in 2015 and 2022. The excitement is only set to escalate as the anticipation builds for the June weekender, with three additional headliners yet to be announced.

The Friday lineup boasts a diverse array of musical talents, featuring JPEGMAFIA, Flatbush Zombies, The Garden, Redveil, MAVI, and King Isis.

The excitement continues with a multigenre array of performances on Saturday and Sunday, showcasing talents like Soccer Mommy, Show Me The Body, Poison The Well, Angel Du$t, Mannequin Pussy, Ceremony, Touché Amoré, Movements, Incendiary, Mindforce, and more.

Other performers include Balance and Composure, Bodyweb, Chat Pile, Demonstration Of Power, Fiddlehead, Higher Power, Hot Mulligan, Teenage Wrist, The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, amongst others.

Adding a touch of nostalgia, Outbreak Festival presents special anniversary sets from Joyce Manor, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the seminal album ‘Never Hungover Again,’ American shoegazers Nothing performing ‘Guilty of Everything‘ from 2014, and The Hotelier marking a decade of their second album ‘Home, Like Noplace Is There.’ New Jersey post-hardcore artist Thursday will also contribute to the sentimental vibe with a set comprising tracks from their acclaimed albums ‘War All The Time‘ and ‘Full Collapse.’

Reflecting on the success of the 2023 edition, headlined by US hip-hop acts Denzel Curry and Death Grips, along with Converge and Bane, Outbreak Festival remains committed to its diverse lineup and its roots in hardcore and alternative music. Hailed as “the heart and soul of hardcore” in Huck magazine, it is a staple in the calendar for enthusiasts in the hardcore and counterculture scenes.

Tickets for the highly anticipated 2024 edition are already on sale here beckoning fans to secure their spot for what promises to be an unmissable experience. Fans can expect more announcements, including the other three headliners, in the coming months. Stay tuned for updates.

A new British Pop Archive is set to take place at The University of Manchester, exhibiting items of great importance to popular culture over the last few decades, such as Ian Curtis’ handwritten lyrics to “She’s Lost Control“, or Joy Division/New Order manager Rob Gretton’s archive.

Happening in the university’s John Rylands Research Institute and Library, the exhibition started off as an idea back in 2018, with the deaths of Pete Shelley and The Fall’s Mark E. Smith being an inspiration. The institute’s director, Hannah Barker, explains that “Because I’m a historian who works in archives, I remember thinking: ‘I wonder what happens if these guys had no archive.“

Part of the thinking behind it is the worry that culture from hundreds of years ago has an unfair advantage, being instantly recognised as more important than recent achievements, despite us having much more to explore of the latter.

The university’s professor of popular culture, Jon Savage, said that “it is a kind of false equivalence. It’s very easy to look at artefacts from 400 years ago and say that’s really important. What we are saying is this is important now. Maybe if more people had kept material from Shakespeare’s time it wouldn’t just be Shakespeare that we’re talking about.“

The inaugural exhibition will take place on May 19th with Mat Bancroft, Savage and Barker curating. It’s being touted as “a distinctively Manchester-flavoured exhibition, underlining why the city is the perfect home for the British Pop Archive …. it explores the vibrant cultural scene of a city that has driven innovation, creativity and social progress.“

Items relating to bands such as The Haçienda, Sex Pistols and record label Factory Records will also appear. Granada TV’s archive will be there too, with fans of Coronation Street, World in Action, Prime Suspect and The Hitman and Her being in for a treat.

However, it’s not the only time Joy Division have received recognition for their achievements recently. You can read here about a mural set up just over a week ago in Ian Curtis’ name, right in the town where he was brought up and buried – Macclesfield.