Summer in Madrid is set to be even hotter as the Mad Cool festival descends for its third year in the capital, bringing the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, and Wolf Alice with it.
The festival, which began in 2016 with an eye-catching lineup that included big names such as Neil Young and The Who, takes over the weekend of July 12 to 14. With big-name acts including Alice In Chains and Queens Of The Stone Age already confirmed, the only way is up.
The biggest new addition to the lineup is Arctic Monkeys who also confirmed a headlining slot at rival festival Primavera Sound. The band will join the well-heeled ranks of Björk, Nick Cave, and The Bad Seeds, The National, Lorde, Migos, and A$AP Rocky there. The band was rumored to perform at the Mad Cool Festival just a few months ago and has now confirmed festival dates for the whole summer.
The boys announced a full European tour, which takes in festival appearances in Germany, Greece, Poland, Sweden, and more. They'll also be hopping across the pond to the United States for the Firefly Festival in June. The band's only scheduled UK appearance at the moment is at TRNSMT 2018 in Glasgow, which is also slated for June.
The band has been on hiatus for a number of years, so the dates came as a massive boost to fans who have been eagerly awaiting the chance to catch them live again. The group's last tour was in 2014.
In the interim, Arctic Monkeys has been busy working on its sixth studio album following 2013's well-received AM, which charted at #6 on the Billboard Hot 200.
Bassist Nick O'Malley confirmed they had begun working on the upcoming album in September of last year, with a slated 2018 release date. In the meantime, frontman Alex Turner released a second album with The Last Shadow Puppets in 2016 while drummer Matt Helders took drumming duties on Iggy Pop's Post Pop Depression.
Although the band hasn't gone on tour or released anything since AM, all four of them appeared together in 2016 for a live benefit show to promote the Sheffield Children's Hospital arts trail. Turner was quoted at the time as saying the band was in no rush to do another record.
Weirdly, the announcements for Mad Cool and Primavera come in the wake of a cryptic video, which appeared on Reddit and purported to give clues about upcoming tour dates.The clip, since deleted and confirmed as a fake, claimed to be from the band's Instagram Story and sparked speculation from fans about possible dates and locations for upcoming concerts.
Although fans guessed (correctly) that the band would be appearing at Primavera and Mad Cool, the idea of a surprise show in London was also floated, which sadly turned out to be a no-go.
Arctic Monkeys join the likes of Kasabian, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Massive Attack, Jack White, and loads more at Mad Cool. Also announced for the Spanish festival this week were Tame Impala and Wolf Alice. Tickets for the festival are sold out, but there are a few knocking around on third-party resellers such as StubHub.
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