During these troubling times for live music and festivals, good news comes in the form of the recent headline announcement for the Isle of Wright Festival 2021. Liam Gallagher, Snow Patrol, David Guetta and Duran Duran have all signed up to headline this year’s festival. Usually held in June, organisers had to adapt due to the ongoing COVID pandemic and pushed the festival back by three months. The event will now take place between 16th and 19th September at Seaclose park located in Newport, Isle of Wright.
The line up was posted on the Festival’s Instagram to announce the news.
This year will mark three years since Gallagher last headlined the festival with co-headliner, British electronic monarchs, Depeche Mode. The former Oasis member will be performing on Friday night, Saturday’s headline acts will be Snow Patrol and legendary DJ and producer, David Guetta, and closing the four-day event will be British music icons, Duran Duran.
Other performers include OBE and ‘Sex Bomb‘ singer Sir Tom Jones, The Script, All Saints, Becky Hill, Ella Henderson, Example, Imelda May, James, James Arthur, Kaiser Chiefs, Lawson, Lightning Seeds, Maximo Park, Primal Scream, Razorlight, Sam Fender, Scouting for Girls, Seasick Steve, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Supergrass, The Snuts and Surrey rockers, You Me at Six.
John Giddings, festival promotor, has said this about the line up as well as plans to ensure everyone in attendance’s safety. “It’s a fantastic array of artists, from icons to emerging talent and not forgetting everything still to come from additional stages across the festival. Over the coming months we’ll be watching and learning from the events taking place before us and, of course, liaising with all the relevant authorities to make sure everyone – audience, artists, staff, the community – is kept safe.”
The acclaimed festival, initially an event held in support of the hippie and counterculture movement of the late 60s and early ’70s, became the centre of a parliament issue. The event held in 1970 caused issues due to its large size physically as well as the large number of people in attendance. This caused Parliament to amend the Isle of Wright County Council Act of 1971 to ensure that such events would not become too large and amended the law to limit the attendance to 5,000 people for overnight and open-air event. The festival was temporarily shut down until its rebirth in 2002, the headliners performing at the festival’s reemergence included The Charlatans and Led Zeppelin singer, Robert Plant.
Although Last year’s event was cancelled due to COVID, Snow Patrol and Duran Duran, who were the original headliners for 2020 will also be returning this year. The 2020 line up also included Happy Mondays, Lionel Richie, Snow Patrol, The Chemical Brothers, Duran Duran, Dido and The Libertines. With so many other live music events being cancelled due to the current pandemic and COVID restrictions, this year’s Isle of Wright festival will surely see a burst of popularity and rush in ticket sales.
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