The rumour mill is certainly in overdrive for Splendour In The Grass with music lovers across the country working hard to uncover any clues from local and international bands in a quest to find who out may be playing the iconic festival this year.
FasterLouder kicked off proceedings earlier in the week when they pounced on a statement from the band that that they would be travelling to Australia this winter, which would kind of coincide with Splendour but isn’t exactly a confirmation or even a leak.
But the floodgates were opened and now every man and his dog are posting their predictions up around the Internet. The first solid leak, or as close as we’re going to get, came from Shins frontman James Mercer who told The Vine the group were ‘pencilled in’ for Splendour but that it wasn’t official.
“I know there was talk about Splendour in the Grass,” he said. “But that’s like, pencilled into my calendar. It’s not official. So it would be trying to be something together around there, I suppose.”
Since then rumours and clues have been flying in, including today that The Ting Tings, who bailed on the festival back in 2010, would be paying back a favour by appearing this year. The rumour gained some traction when the duo spoke to Radar Music last night and indicated they were indeed planning a tour.
“We’re coming down, once we set off in March we won’t come back [home] for a year and a half,” they said. “We’ve got everything booked in I can’t give you the dates; I don’t have the diary in front of me. This year we’re actually coming down twice.”
“I just can’t remember what the dates are and what the festivals are,” they continued. “I know we plan on doing our own circuit down there, which I’m looking forward to. We nearly did that last year but we pulled out I don’t think we’ve done that down there; we’ve always played festivals.”
Sleigh Bells are also hotly tipped to be making an appearance after frontman Derek Miller told triple j that they too plan to visit Australia twice. “We absolutely are [touring],” Miller said to listeners. “We’re coming over there twice at least on this record. So you guys will be seeing us; we’re coming.”
A few industry tipsters have also been throwing Lana Del Rey’s name around. The 25-year-old singer was due to travel to Australia for showcase shows this month presented by Splendour promoters Secret Sounds but was forced to pull out of the dates due to ‘unprecedented international demand’.
Ticket holders were promised that she would return sometime in the future for bigger shows. Could a set at Splendour kick off her debut Australian tour? Quite possibly, the uber-hyped singer makes perfect sense for the festival.
FasterLouder today are also predicting Bloc Party, who have played the festival three times already, would be making an appearance debuting new material from their forthcoming fourth studio album which is due sometime this year.
While the prediction is based on pretty shaky evidence it would make sense for the festival to chase the British rock group seeing as they’ve booked them every two to three years since 2005 – their last appearance being back in 2009.
The actual lineup is expected to be announced sometime in April.
Hopefully Splendour can buck the trend this year after a number of festivals failed to meet expectations or simply fell over these last 12 months. Check out our slideshow of The Year The Festival Died.
