Having won over the critics with their Mercury Music Prize nominated debut album ‘Fantastic Playroom’ in 2007, NEW YOUNG PONY CLUB have torn up the rulebook once again.   On their return with this year’s ‘The Optimist’, the band have delivered an album that mines a vein of both emotional and intellectual depth with brutal clarity. Already heralded on release, it’s the sound of a band taking full control of their present and future.

West Palm Beach quartet SURFER BLOOD bring their revved up, sun-strafed vein of anthemic, eccentric pop to the festival.  Debut album ‘Astro Turf’ and a UK tour in the spring of 2010 will ensure the audience are ready to embrace their hotly tipped tunes.

Emerging fully formed out of the North East, or Sunderland to be precise, FRANKIE & THE HEARTSTRINGS spent 2009 grafting solidly before releasing their debut single ‘Hunger’ on Rough Trade in December.  This year has seen the band tipped as ‘Ones to Watch’ and via their own PopSexLtd label will release a second single ‘Tender’; a debut album is planned for Autumn. Frankie & The Heartstrings are soul-brothers, the dreamers who dared to think big.

Saturday 28th August at Reading Festival / Friday 27th August at Leeds Festival

SERJ TANKIAN will be sure to fire up the crowd in the NME/Radio 1 tent at the weekend.  The Lebanese born Armenian-American poet-gone-wild showed the world with his debut album ‘Elect The Dead’ he could entertain as a solo artist as much as he could in his band System Of A Down. This will be a truly uplifting show.

Sunday 29th August at Reading Festival / Saturday 28th August at Leeds Festival

Celebrated  four-piece WILD BEASTS  cleaned up in the ‘End of Year’ polls with their  universally praised sophomore album ‘Two Dancers’  - described by The Sunday Times  as “one of 2009’s indisputable masterpieces.”  The band bring their own unique, inimitable style to this year’s festival - witness and be enthralled.


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