yes i’m doing a roblox concert …. what about it?!! https://t.co/Vewb62tleW
Friday 11th @ 5pm GMT
for tha brits after party.
character lookin a lil thick stilllllll pic.twitter.com/5oFifvLs0v

— pinkpantheress (@pinkpantheress2) February 8, 2022

Speaking concerning her upcoming concert, PinkPantheress expresses excitement to partner her music with the gaming world, “I’m so glad I got to do a performance for the Roblox and BRITs families, As someone that loves video games and escaping into my own virtual world, I’m hoping I took everyone on an experience.”

The 2022 Brit awards have also partnered with metaverse developer Dubit to provide further digital elements for fans to interact with. The Brits new virtual world also includes scavenger hunts, Brit Award statuettes to be collected and a browsing platform for merch. For the first time in the award’s history, a digital VIP party will be made available through their partnership with Roblox and Dubit. From yesterday until 13th February 2022 nominees and honourees will be available for virtual meet and greets with fans. Within the metaverse stage, highlights will be shown today from the ceremony held last night at London’s O2 Arena.

Luke Ferrar, Innovation Director, Polydor Records and Co-Chair of the BRITs Digital committee has provided the following statement regarding the new partnership, “When planning the BRITs 2022 digital campaign we knew we wanted to enter the metaverse with Roblox. What Dubit has built within the Roblox platform is an immersive BRITs experience. It has far surpassed our expectations with wonderful detail and flourishes in the world. It’s fantastic to have PinkPantheress, who reaches a huge Gen Z audience, perform in it. Very proud to have the BRITs enter this space in this way for the first time.”

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The first broadcast of PinkPantheress’ virtual concert comes a week after the premiere of David Guetta’s performance within the platform. The superstar DJ’s avatar played a 45-minute set which premiered on 4th February 2022, Guetta has spoken on the unique shows, “Working on this concert has allowed me to bring an amazing new creation to life with design and production to suit the virtual world, We’ve built something that will play host to one of the most unique shows I’ve ever done and I can’t wait for everyone to experience it with me.”

PinkPantheress is set to appear at this year’s Reading and Leeds Festival. On Friday 26th August 2022, the 21-year-old singer will perform alongside headlining acts Dave and Megan Thee Stallion. The singer will perform at the Leeds site on Saturday 27th August 2022, featuring the same headlining acts as seen in Reading.

Click here to watch PinkPantheress’ virtual concert.

Additionally, the winners will also get the chance to share the stage with Yungblud at his headline shows in January 2022. All new acts from across Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific are allowed to enter the competition. Submissions will then be judged by an expert panel consisting of rapper Denzel Curry the Grammy-nominated artist and songwriter to the stars Julia Michaels, and 88rising’s founder Sean Miyashiro, and Yungblud.

Once the judges have viewed all the acts they will pick their top five finalists from each region to perform at the Vans Musicians Wanted virtual concert series in September 2021. There will also be regional grand prize winners selected and they will receive the aforementioned Vans products, gear from Kramer, global music distribution, and playlisting on both Spotify and Apple Music.

If you think you have what it takes to enter the competition simply submit your own original music on the Vans Musicians Wanted website before the July 23 closing date. A message on the site reads:

“Calling all singers, rappers, drummers, even flutists. Whatever your musical vice, enter for the chance to perform with YUNGBLUD. Judges will pick a final five to perform in a digital battle for the grand prize. Content will be posted and shared on vans.eu/musicianswanted and our social platforms. Don’t miss your chance.”

The competition previously took place last year in 2020 and received over 22,000 artist submissions so it would be wise to expect a similar number this year. Winners of the last Musicians Wanted competition include UK rapper and producer JoeJas, Argentinian singer-songwriter Lucia Tacchetti and the Korean experimental rock group numnum.

Frontman and multi-instrumentalist Murray Matravers have spoken to BANG Showbiz regarding the group’s upcoming new album, whilst providing an insight into the group’s creative process. “We’re already working on the second record, we started working on that six months ago after we submitted the first one. We’re pretty close, actually, with that one. We’re always writing in the background.”

He went on to describe the bittersweet benefits in which lockdown provided as well as the downsides in which the group encountered in their creative process. “It was the first time that we’ve been given an extended period of time to actually make music. Usually, we’re be writing music, touring and also not taking it very seriously at all. We’d always be doing music on the side, but this is the first time where we could sit down for a year and make music. It was a bit strange. I think the luxury of having so much time was a positive but also a negative because I was in danger of overthinking every single step of the process. Whereas usually I’d be doing the writing on the side and no one really cares… I wrote a lot of bad music.”

The new album will follow up their debut album ‘Life’s a Beach’ which was released on 28th May 2021. The first studio album was released through Island Records and landed at number two within the UK Albums charts. The fivesome’s debut sired five singles, the album’s lead single ‘Daydreams’ was released on 21st October 2020. Followed by ‘A Message to Myself’, ‘Skeletons’, ‘Have a Great Day’ and finally ‘Ocean View’, released on 24th May 2021. The album’s most successful single was ‘Skeletons’ and was performed on the American chat show ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ on 13th April 2021.

Before the group’s first studio album, their first mixtape entitled ‘Creature Habits’ was released in April 2018. The mixtape sired their first single ‘Pockets’, due to this release the group signed with Island Records leaving their previous label Chess Club Records. After which, the group started to gain traction within the industry, in September 2018 Easy Life performed on the prestigious music show, ‘Later… With Jools Holland’. The group began their festival appearances in 2019, they played the US festival South by Southwest as well as other UK tours. Easy Life have also earned their stripes at the legendary event Glastonbury Festival in 2019, where they headlined the BBC Introducing stage.

The group took the stage again this year within an unusual setting, the performance was held inside the popular video game Fortnite. The band played the virtual concert held on 24th June 2021 and their venue was an electronically recreated O2 Arena in London. The concert was held in partnership with O2, Epic Games, Globe and Island Records UK and can be viewed via the new digital space created by the developers, entitled Fortnite Creative.

The group made history with their set as they are the first UK band to perform via the new platform. Matravers has provided the following statement concerning the group’s latest revolutionary gig and also described how such technological advances have created more opportunities creatively. “In the game, you can just do anything. We’re performing underwater, inside a fish, we get flushed down to the toilet. The possibilities were literally never-ending, we could do anything.”

Easy Life UK Tour Dates

11/07/2021 – Rough Trade Bristol – Bristol
14/07 – Rough Trade East – London
19/07 – The Y Theatre – Leicester
21/07 – Metronome – Nottingham
22/07 – Rough Trade Nottingham – Nottingham
24/07 – Arts Club – Liverpool
03/09 – Victoria Park – Warrington
04/09 – Neighbourhood Weekender – Warrington
04/09 – Victoria Park – Warrington
25/09 – Northamptonshire The County Ground – Northampton
01/11 – O2 Academy – Bristol
02/11 – O2 Institute – Birmingham
05/11 – Morningside Arena – Leicester
06/11 – Albert Hall – Manchester
07/11 – O2 Academy – Leeds
09/11 – Barrowland Ballroom – Glasgow
11/11 – O2 Academy – Newcastle
12/11 – The Foundry – Sheffield
14/11 – The Wedgewood Rooms – Portsmouth
15/11 – Dome – Brighton
15/11 – Brighton Dome and Festival LTD – Brighton
16/11 – O2 Academy Brixton – London
17/11 – O2 Academy Brixton – London
21/11 – Limelight – Belfast
22/11 – Olympia Theatre – Dublin

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The band has also announced they will doing a live-streamed concert to celebrate the release of the new album, live from the Mermaid Arts Centre, in their hometown of Bray, Co. Wicklow on Thursday 25th of February. The band will be joined by Bray visual artist 1iing Heaney. 1iing will be recreating some of the visual elements she designed for the album, making the performance completely unique. The tickets are on sale here, for €12 but you can get a discounted ticket if you pre-order the album.

Awake You Lie will be released on the 26th of February, it was recorded in JRS studios in Berlin pre-COVID and finished off in a locked-down Ireland. The album which was written by the trio was a way for them to make sense of the trials and tribulations of their late 20s. The album will be released nearly two years to the day after their Choice Music Prize-nominated, self-titled debut album.

The album may have been born from anxiety but it is sprinkled with songs of hope such as Rapture. Karen Cowley wrote the song and described it as; “the sincerest love song I’ve ever written, inspired by overcoming long distance, and managing to remain completely overwhelmed by the mere existence of someone, even when apart.”

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This comes following the news that the trio have been announced as the winners of  the Female Commissioning Scheme. This is a scheme offered by The National Concert Hall and Sounding the Feminists that offers established and emerging female and female-identifying musicians and composers a new platform to create work.

Wyvern Lingo, made up of childhood friends, released their first EP, The Widow Knows in 2014 and headed out on a UK and Ireland tour with Hozier. They then released their EP in 2016, Letters To Willow, before releasing Wyvern Lingo in 2018. Awake You Lie, will include already released singles Don’t Say It, Brutal Lottery, Things Fall Apart, Rapture, Only Love Only Light and of course, Sydney.

Sydney is available now on all platforms, you can check it out below. Awake You Lie will be out Friday, 26th of February. Tickets to their live-streamed concert at the Mermaid Arts Centre are available here.

Photo credit: Miguel Ruiz

Taking to social media to announce the news, the band said; “It will be different this year due to the pandemic, of course, but we are excited to gather (virtually) for one of our favourite weekends of the year, and the 4th year of The Weekender. These will be the first shows we are playing after the release of our new record Open Door Policy (out 19 February), so we will have a lot to celebrate.”

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Tickets are on sale now via FANS.LIVE, including single-show tickets for £15.00 and two-night packages for £27.50 In addition, fans purchasing show tickets will be able to buy additional tickets for an exclusive Soundcheck event, set for Saturday, March 6 and priced at £20.00. The Weekender shows will also be available on-demand for a limited time via FANS.LIVE following the final performance on March 6th.

The Hold Steady will be performing classic tracks, fan favourites along with the newest songs from their upcoming album; OPEN DOOR POLICY, which will be released on Friday, February 19th, via Thirty Tigers. The album will feature previously released singles such as Spices, Heavey Covenant and Family Farm. 

Speaking about the new album in an Instagram post, the band said; “Our intention was to create an album that worked as a grand piece, rather than a collection of songs. 2019 was an active year for The Hold Steady — our writing was consistent, and new songs were coming in pretty regularly. The recording process was creative, open and fun.”

Tickets for The Weekender are on sale now via FANS.LIVE. You can also pre-order OPEN DOOR POLICY will be released on Friday, February 19th. You can pre-order the album now.

They wrote the caption, “We can’t wait to perform for you all at home,” which accompanied the Instagram TV video of the group, hilariously unprepared, practicing and filming the announcement online from their individual homes, where they are currently in lockdown.

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Tickets for the performance, titled ‘Live From London’, are on sale now at £10 per person, and the show will air around the world – find the full list of timezones at the end of this post. According to TicketMaster, the set will contain hits such as ‘Charlemagne’, ‘I Can’t Stand It’ and ‘Your Girlfriend’, as well as many more.

Not only will this be an incredible opportunity to see the band play live, but with the Melody VR app, viewers can virtually join the band on stage and get a 360° view of the show using virtual reality headsets. This follows virtual shows from the likes of Fontaines D.C., Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, and Tom Grennan at the famous venue.

Melody VR CEO Anthony Matchett said, “MelodyVR’s mission is to use our innovative technology to make sure artists can keep staging amazing shows and fans can continue to experience and enjoy the live music that they love.”

Having previously held the successful Wireless festival online, Melody VR decided to take more shows online during the Covid-19 pandemic. Matchett continued, “Live From O2 Academy Brixton is another exciting venture in partnership with Live Nation. Virtual shows are here to complement and support live entertainment, and we are proud to be working with the rest of the industry to ensure that live music doesn’t stop.”

Blossoms have had a busy year releasing and promoting their latest album ‘Foolish Loving Spaces’, which came out back in March 2020. They have a tour coming up in March of next year in lieu of the cancellations currently caused by Covid-19, and they recently shared a new Christmas single ‘It’s Going To Be a Cold Winter’. At the start of November, the documentary ‘Back To Stockport’ came out, showcasing their gig at Stockport County FC’s Edgeley Park in 2019.

Here is the full list of times for the ‘Live In London’ gig:

03/12/2020 – UK (GMT) – 8.30pm
03/12 – Europe and Republic of Ireland (CET) – 9.30pm
03/12 – USA West (PST) – 12.30pm
03/12 – USA East (EST) – 3.30pm
04/12 – Australasia (AUD) – 7.30am