2024 headline speculation

[Rex2]

That lankum and sleater Kinney way too small surely. No track on Spotify breaking a million plays between them. In contract to last year all the headliners had a t ekast one track with 100 million plays. It's night and day

[edwinizza]

12 minutes ago, Rex2 said:

That lankum and sleater Kinney way too small surely. No track on Spotify breaking a million plays between them. In contract to last year all the headliners had a t ekast one track with 100 million plays. It's night and day

Really interesting what makes a big band.

By this metric, King Gizzard were the minnows among the headliners last year (their top Spotify track only has 44 million plays) but my impression was everyone felt they were the “biggest” draw on the bill. 
 

Lankum have *just* passed 1 million for their top track btw. 

Edited February 5 by edwinizza

[wolfamongwolves]

12 minutes ago, Rex2 said:

That lankum and sleater Kinney way too small surely. No track on Spotify breaking a million plays between them. In contract to last year all the headliners had a t ekast one track with 100 million plays. It's night and day

Sleater-Kinney headline the woods stage no problem 

[SweepingTheNation]

12 minutes ago, Rex2 said:

That lankum and sleater Kinney way too small surely. No track on Spotify breaking a million plays between them. In contract to last year all the headliners had a t ekast one track with 100 million plays. It's night and day

So Big Thief can't headline either? Are you the person in the APE thread last year who insisted Girl In Red had to headline over the Strokes because they had more Spotify listeners? It's almost as if reputation, potential and excitement count for more than cold statistics, especially with a comparatively smaller and niche-r festival like EOTR.

[jannybruck]

Streaming is absolutely not the metric to gauge headliners for a niche nerdy festival like this because different demographics consume music in different ways and a band like Lankum are never going to have streaming friendly tracks.

You should be looking at venue sizes and physical ticket sales to get rough estimates of the size we're working with (roughly bands who'd play Brixton Academy or Hammersmith Apollo - or in the case of Lankum well on their way to it), not streams.

Edited February 5 by jannybruck

[edwinizza]

6 minutes ago, jannybruck said:

Streaming is absolutely not the metric to gauge headliners for a niche nerdy festival like this because different demographics consume music in different ways and a band like Lankum are never going to have streaming friendly tracks.

You should be looking at venue sizes and physical ticket sales to get rough estimates of the size we're working with (roughly bands who'd play Brixton Academy or Hammersmith Apollo - or in the case of Lankum well on their way to it), not streams.

Agree with your general point but can also see where Rex2 is coming from. S-K and Lankum are both currently Roundhouse-level bands aren’t they?

[SweepingTheNation]

On the subject of Lankum potentially headlining, I think to say "they should still play Garden" does the whole concept of making them headliner a disservice, because Simon's said before that he's keen on elevating artists to that level when at a critical and commercial height as Lankum (who he's been an openly big fan of for years) presently are, so to then essentially be told you're actually only good for the second stage surely defeats the purpose. They didn't push Angel Olsen as a headliner even though she was booked as one, and the one time they did it before Bill Callahan didn't get a great turnout.

[Rex2]

Of course big thief can. I guess this is one of the few festivals that can get away with it but most festivals need to book names that are more recognisable to the wider population in order to sell tickets 

 

I would use Glastonbury placement as a good metric. Lankum last slot there was the breakfast slot on park. Future islands and UMO in comparison had prime time evening slots. Whilst other  prime time acts on that year were Michael kiwanuka, Kurt Vile, idles little Sims etc who are the sort of act EOTR have been booking to headline 

Edited February 5 by Rex2

[wolfamongwolves]

6 minutes ago, SweepingTheNation said:

On the subject of Lankum potentially headlining, I think to say "they should still play Garden" does the whole concept of making them headliner a disservice, because Simon's said before that he's keen on elevating artists to that level when at a critical and commercial height as Lankum (who he's been an openly big fan of for years) presently are, so to then essentially be told you're actually only good for the second stage surely defeats the purpose. They didn't push Angel Olsen as a headliner even though she was booked as one, and the one time they did it before Bill Callahan didn't get a great turnout.

Lankum just perfect for the Garden 

[emmanuel]

Lankum can definitively headline. Not only they have sold out Roundhouse but that was several months in advance. They could have played 2 nights. Also they play in the same venues as other headliners from the past few years, so there's certainly no issue with them playing the main stage per se. If people don't like them, that's fine, but I don't see the issue.

If Lankum are the band announced for both Moseley Folk Fest and EOTR that would be quite funny, because obviously last year Supersonic Festival booked Lankum on the exact same weekend, so it would suggest some internal back-and-forth between the two festivals.

Of the suggested headliners, Sleater-Kinney are the smallest for sure; the Roundhouse show last year was ~75% capacity. However, they put on a good show, so I certainly do hope EOTR do book them.

[SweepingTheNation]

10 minutes ago, emmanuel said:

Of the suggested headliners, Sleater-Kinney are the smallest for sure; the Roundhouse show last year was ~75% capacity. However, they put on a good show, so I certainly do hope EOTR do book them.

Thing to remember about Sleater-Kinney is they're currently the most likely of the acts that were listed in Simon's big first year wishlist, which is the thing this thread started with. Also they really don't play European festivals very often, APE is going to be their first outdoor festival in the UK since they restarted.

Edited February 5 by SweepingTheNation

[lessthanwill1]

Have The Decemberists ever played a U.K. or European festival?  If they have, I think it was ages ago.

Im surprised by their APE billing tbh.  I didn’t think they were that big at all outside of the US but maybe it’s the fact that they are quite a rare booking outside of the U.K. Past U.K. dates have been at Academy type venues for the most part. 

[shoebox]

2 minutes ago, lessthanwill1 said:

Have The Decemberists ever played a U.K. or European festival?  If they have, I think it was ages ago.

Im surprised by their APE billing tbh.  I didn’t think they were that big at all outside of the US but maybe it’s the fact that they are quite a rare booking outside of the U.K. Past U.K. dates have been at Academy type venues for the most part. 

They played ATP once because I saw them there 

[zahidf]

The capacity of EOTR is small enough for Spotify views to not be that imortant really. A lot of it is what Simon likes to listen to as well 

[Justiceforcedave]

Would love to have Decemberists!

[ddsouza1]

4 hours ago, emmanuel said:

Lankum can definitively headline. Not only they have sold out Roundhouse but that was several months in advance. They could have played 2 nights. Also they play in the same venues as other headliners from the past few years, so there's certainly no issue with them playing the main stage per se. If people don't like them, that's fine, but I don't see the issue.

If Lankum are the band announced for both Moseley Folk Fest and EOTR that would be quite funny, because obviously last year Supersonic Festival booked Lankum on the exact same weekend, so it would suggest some internal back-and-forth between the two festivals.

Of the suggested headliners, Sleater-Kinney are the smallest for sure; the Roundhouse show last year was ~75% capacity. However, they put on a good show, so I certainly do hope EOTR do book them.

It's more about should rather than can. Fair enough if you're a committed fan and want to go see their tour show, but as a festival headliner they seem too esoteric/downbeat for me. Hardly the sort of thing you spend a day building towards and then gonna career off into the night with.. 

Surprisingly the best headliner I've seen at EOTR (this will be only my fifth year..) was Vampire Weekend, but that was a slight one off as their album release date had been pushed back loads so they just played loads of old songs which as a young-ish millennial hit all the right buttons..!

[RustySpanner]

Could Mogwai be in the running or does them playing Arctangent rule them out?

[lessthanwill1]

2 minutes ago, RustySpanner said:

Could Mogwai be in the running or does them playing Arctangent rule them out?

The latter

[ddsouza1]

Any word on Sacred Paws? They have a new album out and have just started announcing festival dates. Would be a great booking IMO

[SweepingTheNation]

20 minutes ago, ddsouza1 said:

Any word on Sacred Paws? They have a new album out and have just started announcing festival dates. Would be a great booking IMO

Could well do, Ray Aggs has played before with both their other bands Shopping and Trash Kit.

[zahidf]

1 hour ago, ddsouza1 said:

It's more about should rather than can. Fair enough if you're a committed fan and want to go see their tour show, but as a festival headliner they seem too esoteric/downbeat for me. Hardly the sort of thing you spend a day building towards and then gonna career off into the night with.. 

Surprisingly the best headliner I've seen at EOTR (this will be only my fifth year..) was Vampire Weekend, but that was a slight one off as their album release date had been pushed back loads so they just played loads of old songs which as a young-ish millennial hit all the right buttons..!

They are headling the second stage at latitude, and are probably the same size as Unknown mortal orchestra/wilco in ticket selling terms, so I'd say lankum would deffo be hig enough as a smaller headliner.

 

I personally think they could be a garden stage headliner playing false lankum though

[Mardy]

Lankum easily enough a decent headliner. Certainly big enough. Not my bag at all, and I'll be elsewhere, but they've got albums of the year accolades all over the shop, critically acclaimed, musically fit into the EOTR demographic. A shoe-in, I reckon. Just a shame they're so f**king dull.

[zahidf]

7 minutes ago, Mardy said:

Lankum easily enough a decent headliner. Certainly big enough. Not my bag at all, and I'll be elsewhere, but they've got albums of the year accolades all over the shop, critically acclaimed, musically fit into the EOTR demographic. A shoe-in, I reckon. Just a shame they're so f**king dull.

All i would say is that they are much more powerful live, and i think will be a great show to end one of the nights with

[Nick07]

Would Lankum headline the Garden?

[scatteredscreens]

Need Beth Gibbons on the bill (not Garden headline please)