One of the biggest festivals in the business announced their 2019 lineup this week, Barcelona’s Primavera Sound. If you’re thinking of escaping the dreary Melbourne winter next year, you could catch the likes of Robyn, FKA Twigs, James Blake, Yaeji, Objekt, Peggy Gou, Helena Hauff, Steffi, Dr. Rubinstein, Richie Hawtin, Avalon Emerson, Djrum and even our girl Roza Terenzi – plus heaps more. The big news though, is that slightly more than 50% of the bill is made up of acts featuring women. As far as I’m aware, this is the first of the world’s big festival to achieve anything even close to a 50/50 split after decades of music festivals being male-dominated. Obviously this is a “don’t-read-the-comments” part of the internet though guys, the dude-bros of the world seem to be particularly offended by a lineup being gender balanced. Primavera Sound goes down from Thursday May 30 to Saturday June 1.
Speaking of festivals, Paradigm Festival has announced they’ll be returning in 2019, bringing everything trance and progressive-tech to a yet-to-be-announced Victorian location. The first round of lineup announcements includes Alpha Portal, John O’Callaghan, Mandragora, Will Atkinson, Neelix, Cold Blue, Astrix, Factor B, Ace Ventura and Morten Granau. They’ve also announced the festival is expanding out to three stages this year. It goes down on Saturday March 30 from 2pm.
More festival news, American EDM mega-festival Ultra has announced Melbourne and Sydney dates alongside their first round of acts. Adorning the incredibly tacky looking poster (it looks like a UFC poster for some reason?) is Adam Beyer, The Chainsmokers, Marshmello and Martin Garrix. The Ultra brand has been around for 20-years now, but from a number of drug overdose-induced deaths, to thousands of arrests and the mysterious death of its co-founder Alex Omes on the day before his lawsuit against Ultra began, it’s been a fairly turbulent couple of decades that’s for sure. But the party goes on, apparently. Ultra hits Flemington Racecourse on Saturday February 23.
