The Wedding Present + more across Manchester Academy.
Those of us of a certain age will remember the Futurama Festivals of the late 70s/early 80s with great fondness. They were a place where the punk and post punk tribes of Britain came together to pay witness to a veritable who’s who of the best bands the scene had to offer.
Public Image Ltd, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees and U2 are just a few of the names who graced the festival’s stages over the years.
The Futurama Festivals put a huge number of bands, with around 40 bands playing over the weekend and the experience of being part of the crowd of misfits and weirdos is something that has never left the lucky souls who were there.
And now, after a gap of 35 years, Liverpool’s Marc Jones has teamed up with the festival’s original promoter John Keenan to bring Futurama to 4 stages, spread over 3 venues along the city’s Dock Road.
Futurama 2021 will take place over the Easter weekend of the 3rd and 4th of April. The main stage will be in the Invisible Wind Factory’s main room, while the venue’s Substation will host the electronic/experimental stage.
A stage for up and coming bands will be situated at the Ten Street Social and will be curated by The AF Gang, the IDLES legendary fan club.
The Make Arts Centre will feature a selection of new and vintage post punk bands.
All of which maintains the original Futurama aim of looking forward, this is no retro festival, but rather one that celebrates the future as much as it has its roots in late 70s/early 80s tribal culture.
The first wave of bands have been announced, and will feature a headline set from Peter Hook and The Light, who will be replicating Joy Division’s 1979 set, alongside a selection of the band’s greatest hits. The second headliner is yet to be confirmed.
Other bands performing include;
- Theatre Of Hate
- Warmduscher
- The Membranes
- The Chameleons
- The Blinders
- The Lovely Eggs
- Spizz Energi
- Imperial Wax
- Just Mustard
- Evil Blizzard
- Sink Ya Teeth
- John, Heavy Lungs
- We Are Not Devo
- DSM IV
- Bob Vylan
- Billy NoMates
- Witch Fever
- Tokky Horror
- Pozi, Crows
- St Agnes
- LibraLibra
- Courting
- Crawlers
Although the Futurama Festivals have previously taken place in September, Marc Jones said “I didn’t want to wait until September, because 2021 may be the busiest festival season we’ve seen for years, with all the major festivals trying to catch up on what they missed out on this year, and people may be festivalled out.
Plus, nothing seems to happen at Easter and this may well follow a winter of no gigs and give people a chance to get out and enjoy themselves.
We’ve got to give people something to look forward to, and I think the trouble with the summer is that there are so many festivals and they can all butt against each other, and the weather in this country seems to be very good around Easter these days and less good in June and July.
Of course there is a chance that this may have to be postponed, but all the bands have been really good about it, so if we need to move it back we can do. But the bands want it to happen and I think people will want it to happen.
Bands are booking tours in again for around that time next year, so hopefully gigs will be back on the agenda again by then.”
Further lineup announcements will be made shortly. Watch this space for details.
Early bird tickets are available for £80 from See Tickets and can be paid with a £20 deposit and monthly instalments.
The Futurama Festival’s Facebook page will be kept updated with the latest news – click here for details.
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More work by Banjo is available on his profile here
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