Jake Bugg & Surfer Blood Announce Splendour 2013 Sideshows

Last Thursday, fans rushed the online box office to snap up tickets for Splendour In The Grass, Australia’s biggest winter music festival. As ravenous festival-goers led to the 3 day, single day, and camping tickets to the 2013 event completely selling out (and the ugly ticket scalping began in earnest), Splendour organisers that those that missed out on tickets to the festival, taking place Friday 26 to Sunday 28 July at the new permanent site at North Byron Parklands in Yelgun, could look forward to a whole slew of sideshows.

Splendour’s good pals, Secret Sounds, promised a list of Official Splendour Sideshows at the end of last week, and now, following on from sideshow announcements for Icelandic collective Of Monsters & Men, Irish folk-rockers Villagers, and pop maverick Darwin Deez, they’ve made good on their offer, and presenting proudly in conjunction with Tone Deaf and other presenting partners, two key acts of the 2013 lineup have announced their Splendour sideshows.

First off the cap is UK’s rising star, Jake Bugg, whose track ‘Lightning Bolt’ was first used to soundtrack the announcement that Splendour would be marking 2013 with a move to a permanent 660 acre site at North Byron Parklands in Yelgun. Bugg’s other big go-to song has been “Two Fingers’, which has ensured that there’s big things on the horizon for the Nottigham 19-year-old.

Released in October 2012 and hitting #1 in the UK, Jake Bugg was nominated for Brit and Ivor Novello trophies for his self-titled LP, which our Tone Deaf reviewer revered had “too much potential to ignore… his years are partly the reason behind this album’s early acclaim.”

Fresh off the road on a US tour with Band Of Horses, Jake’s the real deal, and his Splendour sideshows are not to be missed. Bugg plays Sydney’s Oxford Arts Factory on Thurdsay 25th July, and Melbourne’s The Corner on Sunday 28th July.

Surfer Blood are set to drop their brand new album on June 14th ahead of their Splendour visit, and currently zig-zagging through America on a two-month trek with Foals, but more importantly they’re playing two very special East Coast sideshows. The first on Wednesday 24th July at Melbourne’s The Corner and then on Mondy 26th July at Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory.

The Florida natives are aiming to bring back their summer-flavoured alt-rock along with a whole host of new tunes from their new record, Pythons – the follow-up to the critically-acclaimed debut album Astro Coast, which earned top spots on year-end best of lists from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NME and the BBC.

Recorded in LA with producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters) and mixer Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith), the first taste of Pythons arrived recently in lead single ‘Demon Dance’ (watch the ace video here), offering an excellent sign of the ace record to come. Their new Splendour sideshows marks the band’s return in nearly three years, since their dates in 2010, and their guitar-driven live show is sure to leave you buzzed.