The Brockwell Park event confirmed earlier this week that the festival would still take place, despite losing a legal battle over incorrect planning permission. 

You can check out the mxdwn coverage here, where the legal case and the reasons behind it are covered in thorough detail. It all centred around the argument that the park is out-of-use for 37 days a year due to events, which exceeds the legal limit of 28.

Many thought this would spell the end of the Brockwell Park festivals due for the summer, which include Mighty Hoopla, Field Day and of course Wide Awake. This was not the case though, as each festival declared that the show would go on and that they “look forward to opening the gates and welcoming festival goers later this week.”

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Wide Awake have found themselves in a unique position compared to the other festivals though, with headliners Kneecap being marred in controversy, and even legal battles, themselves.

Stemming from their politically-charged performance at Coachella this year – where the band reiterated their strong support for Palestine – the Irish rap trio have been the target of politicians, the media and now even the Metropolitan police.

In news which couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Wide Awake team, Kneecap member Mo Chara has been charged with a “terror offence” for displaying a flag “in support of Hezbollah, a proscribed organisation.”

All of this negative publicity surrounding the festival and their main headliners prove that “not all publicity is good publicity”, as Wide Awake co-founder Keith Miller wrote in an open letter to ticket buyers.

Speaking in the open letter, Miller admitted that they have suffered from “2 stagnant weeks where our ticket sales flatlined when they normally fly.”

This will be Wide Awake’s fifth year running the festival, with Miller revealing that in that period costs have doubled, as well as “some pretty tasty legal costs to fork out as of late”.

To help the rising costs for the independently-run festival, they have released a new ‘Tell Your Friends’ scheme. Here, friends of ticket holders will have the opportunity to buy a ticket for £34.

Miller added that if one in four ticket holders successfully manage to persuade a friend to take up the offer, they’ll “be well on our way to where we need to be to stabilise the event so we can look at things in the summer and not have to be named after a bitcoin next year or just wrap the whole thing up.”

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Wide Awake takes place tonight, with Kneecap being joined by CMAT, English Teacher, Daniel Avery, Mannequin Pussy and many more. See the full line-up above.

If you know someone with a ticket, be sure to drop them a message and get involved in the ‘Tell Your Friends’ scheme. As the Wide Awake team said: “We know Kneecap’s headline show is going to be one for the ages.”

The festival orgainsers have released a statement saying: “New lineup additions include Mercury Prize winners Young Fathers, UK post-punk favourites Squid, beloved DJs Ben UFO and Helena Hauff, electronic pop legend Alice Glass, and Australian rockers C.O.F.F.I.N. to name a few, with yet more cutting-edge electronica and experimental pop artists still to be announced.”

“Expect leftfield Indie, Post Punk, Electronica, Techno and more across a line-up you won’t find anywhere in London. Our line-up has an equal gender split and 2023 saw us work further on our sustainable ‘Positive Policy’, which was set up to change the way live music events affect our planet. Environmentally conscious, socially aware and musical relevant, Wide Awake’s a party for people who care about music and more.”

Heavy hitters include, Young Fathers, an experimental Scottish hip hop who won a mercury prize award in 2014 for their album Dead. The group have gone on to make history by winning their third Scottish Album of the Year award with their latest album, Heavy, Heavy. They are the first artists to win the award three times. Furthermore, UK post punk band, Squid, from Brighton, have been announced for the lineup after they released their album, O Monolith, earlier in the year. The band released an audiobook to go alongside the album, written by Paul Ewan and narrated by Tim Key.

The other artists added to the lineup are Alice Glass, Charlotte Adigary & Bolis Pupil, Ben UFO, Crumb, Eartheater, Helena Hauff, The Babe Rainbow, Bodega, The Dare, David Holmes, Optimo, Al Lover, C.O.F.F.I.N, Decius, Etran Du L’air, Upchuck and Yhwh Nailgun.

A lot more artists should be announced for the day-festival in due course. Last years festival was headlined by Caroline Polacheck and hosted an eclectic batch of artists alongside the headliner, including Alex G, Black Country New Road, Viagra Boys, Jockstrap, Osees, Ty Segall, Joy Orbison and many more.

It is unknown when more artists will be announced for the festival, but more waves of announcements should be expected soon leading up closer to the date of the festival.

The day festival opens on May 25^th, 2024, and the current wave of tickets can be found here.

The band took to their social media pages to announce a whopping 58 shows from March to November of next year. The extensive tour includes festivals, arenas, amphitheaters and even stadiums across the globe. The band had previously already announced there headlining set at next years Wide Awake Festival in Brixton, London, but they have now added more shows across the United Kingdom and Europe.

The band have just released their 25^th studio album, The Silver Chord, last month and previously released metal album, PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation, last June. The band are known for being prolific in releasing a lot of material, bringing out five studio albums in 2017 and 2022. Releasing only 2 studio albums this year can be considered a quiet year for the band, whom are one of the hardest working musical acts in the world.

The band have talked about the new album and its link to the previous one, saying the two albums are “birthed from the same womb. PetroDragonic Apocalypse’’s supercharged opener ‘Motor Spirit’ is in fact just a blackened and twisted version of ‘The Silver Cord’’s hypnotic first track ‘Theia’.” They also spoke of their being two versions of the new album, saying: More unconventional still, there are two different versions of ‘The Silver Cord’: one where their jams are ruthlessly honed into a tight 28 minutes, and another where they’re allowed to sprawl across an hour and a half.

The band, however, did release a nine-hour 86 track long live album at the beginning of this year, Live at Red Rocks 22, which is material stretched across three nights of three-hour marathon sets at the Red Rocks in Colorado, United States. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard also released another live album this year, Live in Chicago ’23, which is again very long, clocking in at 5 and a half hours, with material comprising over three sets across three nights.

Tickets for all of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s tour dates go on general sale on Friday (November 10) and tickets can be found here. The presale goes live on November 8th and can be found on the band’s official website here.

Tour Dates

15/05/2024 – Forest National – Brussels, Belgium
16/05 – Stadthalle – Offenbach, Germany
18/05 – Forum Karlin – Prague, Czech Republic
19/05 – Arena Wien – Vienna, Austria
20/05 – Columbiahalle – Berlin, Germany
22/05 – Stadtpark Open Air – Hamburg, Germany (3-hour marathon set)
23/05 – AFAS Live – Amsterdam, Netherlands
25/05 – Wide Awake Festival – London, United Kingdom
26/05 – Liverpool Olympia – Liverpool, United Kingdom
27/05 – Usher Hall – Edinburgh, United Kingdom
29/05 – Civic Hall – Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
30/05 – Bristol Beacon – Bristol, United Kingdom
31/05 – Brighton Dome – Brighton, United Kingdom (Acoustic Set)
02/06 – We Love Green Festival – Paris, France
04/06 – UNALTROFESTIVAL – Milan, Italy

Here we go… you guessed it: @kinggizzard are heading to Brockwell Park next May. Our most requested headliner EVER We’ve been trying to bring these guys over every year & here we finally ARE!⁠
⁠
Grab your tickets now as they are gonna fly https://t.co/5VBGfqThFH pic.twitter.com/4BKwmOmeGu

— Wide Awake (@wideawakeldn) October 3, 2023

The rest of the line-up is yet to be announced, with more announcements coming soon. This year’s edition of the festival saw Caroline Polachek perform as main headliner, with local bands Black Country, New Road, Warmduscher and Los Bitchos also in attendance. Other notable acts from this summer’s party include American psychedelic/alternative rock legends Osees, Swedish prog-punk pioneers Viagra Boys and Manchester-born, Berlin-based post-punk outfit The Underground Youth.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard has long been a favourite of Wide Awake Festival owner Keith Miller, who has recently described his love of the band in a statement: “We’re so delighted to finally nail down King Gizz! It’ll be 10 years since I first saw them in the Shacklewell [Arms] when they hit the main stage. We’ve tried to bring them over every year, and they were our most requested acts from our fans survey. I caught them up at Manchester Psych Fest in September and it was unreal. You will not be disappointed!”

Fresh off the back of a headline show at the Manchester Academy in September, an event that coincided with Manchester Psych Fest, the prolific and highly energetic Australian band, who transcend music genres as easily as they sell out headline shows, will return to the UK next year to perform for thousands of endlessly loyal supporters.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have also recently announced their 25th studio album, The Silver Cord, and have subsequently released the first three tracks from said album, along with a combined music video of all three songs. The tracks, namely ‘Theia’, ‘The Silver Cord‘ and ‘Set‘, are a perfect testament to the group’s commitment to musical exploration, being experimentally electro in nature and distant from their garage and psychedelic rock beginnings, and certainly different from their previous album release, the thrash metal laden PetroDragonic Apocalypse.

Watch the music video for ‘Theia’, ‘The Silver Cord‘ and ‘Set‘ below:

You can purchase tickets for Wide Awake Festival 2024 here.