Bristol to host BBC Radio 6 Music Festival 2016

• From Friday 12 to Sunday 14 February
• Primal Scream, Roni Size, Tricky, The Blue Aeroplanes and Pinch to perform
• Full line-up to be announced on Tuesday 19 January

BBC Radio 6 Music today revealed that the 6 Music Festival 2016 is coming to Bristol from Friday 12 to Sunday 14 February.

6 Music presenters Steve Lamacq and Mary Anne Hobbs made the announcement in a special outside broadcast live from Bristol’s Watershed. Special guests on the show were Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie and some of Bristol’s finest - Roni Size, Tricky and The Blue Aeroplanes. All were announced today as just some of the acts who will be performing at the festival.

Now in its third year - having previously been to Manchester in 2014 and on Tyneside in 2015 - the 6 Music Festival will take place in venues across the city - Motion, Colston Hall, O2 Academy Bristol, Basement 45 and Trinity.

On Tuesday 19 January 2016, 6 Music will announce the full line-up of bands and artists and the dates the tickets go on sale. The line-up for the 6 Music Festival by Day – a presentation of spoken word, poetry and performance events during the daytime on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 February – will be announced on Tuesday 26 January.

Primal Scream

Ahead of its release in March 2016, the band will be performing material from their new album, Chaosmosis, live for the first time at the 6 Music Festival.

Roni Size

For the 6 Music Festival, Roni Size, DJ Krust and Dynamite MC return with the first official showcase and live broadcast of Full Cycle from their home town of Bristol. Their set will feature classic tracks and new material from the legendary drum and bass label.

Tricky

The 6 Music Festival will be Tricky’s first UK performance showcasing material from his new album, Skilled Mechanics, which is released in January 2016, and this will be his first live show in Bristol since 2012 when he played at The Academy.

The Blue Aeroplanes

This will be the Bristol art-rockers first show of 2016. For the 6 Music audience, they’ll be premiering tracks from their 11th studio album, Welcome. Stranger!, due for release in September 2016; and the first single, Elvis Festival, will be out in February.

DJ Pinch

Bristol's leading man of dubstep, responsible for creating some of the deepest, darkest, most innovative bass music ever produced, led the city’s invasion in dubstep through his pioneering Subloaded nights and releasing music on his own label. Mary Anne Hobbs was an early champion of his sound, and for the festival he’ll be delivering one of his legendary sets.

Mary Anne Hobbs said: “The 6 Music Festival is such a special event because it brings all the elements of what we do as a digital radio station into a physical space: the artists, the whole of the station's staff and presenters, and of course our wonderful listeners. This year, the festival is coming to Bristol, a place where music is such a primary element of the DNA of the city. It’s going to be a truly unforgettable experience."

Steve Lamacq said: “I love getting out of London and going to gigs around the country, so the 6 Music Festival is ideal. Bristol has some fantastic venues - I was there a while back to see a band called The Archie Bronson Outfit and had an excellent night at the Colston Hall, so I’m really looking forward to going back there. I’ve also presented a lot of good shows from Bristol over the years including Sound City for Radio 1 in the Nineties and some gigs for 6 Music, so I know the appetite for music is really healthy around the city. I hope people come along and enjoy it.”

6 Music champions music with an alternative spirit, and the Bristol music scene encapsulates this. The city is steeped in a fantastic musical heritage with a hugely diverse scene which will be reflected at the festival. Bristol has also gained renown for its thriving graffiti art scene, with one of the world’s biggest names, Banksy, hailing from the city. At Watershed today, Steve and Mary Anne talked to graffiti artists CHEO, Inkie and Cosmo Sarson, and 6 Music commissioned local artist Loch Ness to create an artwork especially for the festival which he made during today’s show – see a time lapse video of him creating it later this week at bbc.co.uk/6music.

Paul Rodgers, Head of Programmes for 6 Music, said: “It’s great that Bristol is the host city for the 6 Music Festival 2016. At BBC Radio 6 Music we celebrate music with an alternative spirit, and Bristol, with its unique music and arts scene and many important venues, is a wonderful place to do that. And we’re delighted to be announcing today that some of its finest musicians will be performing at the festival.”

Pat Connor, Head of Development and Events for BBC England, said: “It is incredibly exciting that Bristol will host the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival in 2016. Bristol has a truly unique music scene, always evolving, surprising and thriving. This festival brings us the opportunity to work with partners right across the city to showcase what a vibrant and inspiring region it is for creative people."

The 6 Music Festival 2015 on Tyneside has been short-listed for the Best Live Event award in ChronicleLive’s first ever People’s Choice Awards, which celebrates the thriving entertainment industry in the North East. The winner will be voted for by the general public and announced in early January.

BBC Radio 6 Music is an interactive digital radio station that celebrates the alternative spirit of music and culture, bringing together the cutting-edge music of today and the iconic and ground-breaking sounds of the past 50 years. The network currently has its highest ever weekly reach of 2.19 million listeners (RAJARS Q3, 2015) and is home to respected music presenters including Lauren Laverne, Steve Lamacq, Iggy Pop, Cerys Matthews, Jarvis Cocker, Guy Garvey, Mark Radcliffe, Stuart Maconie, Shaun Keaveny, Tom Robinson, Gilles Peterson, Mary Anne Hobbs, Gideon Coe, Tom Ravenscroft, Nemone, Huey Morgan, Don Letts, Liz Kershaw, Chris Hawkins and Craig Charles.

BBC Bristol is home to some of the most popular programmes on British radio and television. It is also one of the largest BBC offices outside London, with over 750 staff producing online, television and radio output. The BBC in Bristol proudly serves audiences across the West with local and regional favourites such as BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Points West, Inside Out and Sunday Politics West. More than 350 hours of network radio for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3 is made in Bristol each year. The vast range of factual, arts, feature and documentary programmes produced here has made Bristol famous both within the UK and across the world - from Sir David Attenborough’s epic wildlife documentaries such as Life Story, to long-running favourites Antiques Roadshow, Countryfile and the Hairy Bikers.

KA

Related BBC Links

• BBC Radio 6 Music
• BBC Bristol