Meltdown Festival 2023 | A ten day festival at Southbank Centre
Uncover your ears, Christine and the Queens’ meltdown is one you’ll want to hear.
The ten-night-long annual Meltdown Festival is returning to the Southbank Centre this summer (from 9-18 June) with the French pop sensation chosen to hand-pick another formidable lineup.
The festival – now in its 28th year – has the accolade of being the ‘longest running artist-curated festival in the world’ (past curators have included Grace Jones, Yoko Ono and David Bowie) and is as reliable as it gets in terms of strong lineups, considering you have some of the most acclaimed names in the biz picking them out. Christine and the Queens (who also goes by Redcar and sometimes Chris) is famed for constantly finding fresh ways to reinvent himself and his music, music that makes even the grumpiest old man want to stand up and dance, and he’ll be Meltdown’s youngest ever organiser. His mission statement for 2023’s edition: ”Art to save the city! To free its contours and enliven the soul – it’s the why we do what we do. I can’t effing wait.”
Image: Paul Kooiker
So for June, this is what he has in store for us… *drum roll*: At Royal Festival Hall you’ve got Django Django on opening duty (Fri 9), LA quartet Warpaint (Mon 12), jazz collective KOKOROKO (Wed 14), Icelandic indie rockers Sigur Rós with the London Contemporary Orchestra (June 16) before Christine and the Queens rounds things off himself with a double header of performances on the final weekend (Sat 17 and Sun 18). Meanwhile in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, acts like serpentwithfeet, Bat for Lashes and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs will be taking the stage, with more to be announced in the coming months.
And as is Meltdown Festival tradition, alongside the gigs there’ll also be a range of free outdoor shows, performances and activities in and around the Southbank Centre.
All in all, it should be a rager…
NOTE: Christine and the Queens’ Meltdown Festival will take place at the Southbank Centre from 9th-18th June. You can book tickets here.
Meltdown Festival | Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX
If one festival this summer isn’t enough… add more to your list via our guide to the best UK festivals