Balado line-up is a guessing game

Feb 10 2009 by Andrew Welsh, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

SPECULATION surrounding the identity of the T in the Park headliners was mounting yesterday.

Festival bosses named influential UK alternative pop rockers Blur as one of their main turns for the Balado extravaganza late last week, but that move has only served to heighten the guessing game over the names in the frame for the two remaining prime positions at the July 10-12 event.

With only three other artists already listed for this year’s T, organisers are coming under pressure to confirm some of the big guns who’ll be appearing at the former airstrip site in Kinross-shire.

With tens of thousands of fans having already shelled out for tickets, a DF Concerts spokeswoman insisted yesterday that the line-up would be kept under wraps until an official launch at the end of the month.

But she stopped short of denying strong rumours linking artsy Scots rockers Franz Ferdinand with this year’s festival.

Meanwhile, T in the Park gaffer Geoff Ellis described Blur as “legends”.

“It’s great to have such an influential British band,” he said yesterday.

“When we heard there was a chance of them reforming, we were sniffing about because it was something we wanted to be part of. They perfected pop music from an indie-guitar perspective.”

Blur appeared at the first-ever T in the Park way back in 1994, when it was held in Strathclyde.

The Colchester band will boast its reformed original line-up of Damon Albarn, Alex James, Dave Rowntree and Graham Coxon at Balado.

Edgy US guitar outfit Kings Of Leon, who will be appearing for the fifth time at Balado, melodic Scots/Irish outfit Snow Patrol and feisty American songstress Katy Perry were the first acts to be announced on February 2.

Yesterday, a host of leading artists were being tipped to join them and Blur at the three-day summer event.

Among those who are strongly fancied to appear are Franz Ferdinand and fellow tartan favourites The View, chart-topper Lily Allen, Mercury Music Prize winners Elbow and leading US bands The Killers and Fleet Foxes.

But no one from DF Concerts was willing to comment yesterday when contacted by Music Scene.