BBC 6 Music Festival, Victoria Warehouse: Preview

BBC 6 Music’s debut festival at Old Trafford’s Victoria Warehouse looks set to be a corker. Certainly if tickets sales are anything to go by – because there’s none left.

All 8,500 tickets (£25) to the music festival, held on Friday 28 February and Saturday 1 March, sold out within minutes of their release last month.

“The North West music scene is vibrant and eclectic, with Manchester and BBC Radio 6 Music at its heart. We are thrilled the network's inaugural festival with its imaginative programme is based here and shared with the nation.”

Blur frontman Damon Albarn will be headlining the festival and test-driving material from his debut solo LP, Everyday Robots, on the Friday while hot Ohioan property The National will headline the Saturday night. Albarn and The National will be joined by a further 28 acts spread across three stages during two days of music, these include: young British folk prodigy Jake Bugg, now veteran Scottish art-housers Franz Ferdinand, Aussie psych-dance duo Jagwar Ma, US retro sister act Haim, strength-to-strength UK band Bombay Bicycle Club and Mercury Prize winning golden boy James Blake and Kelis (that one with the milkshake and a yard).

Victoria Warehouse

Manchester old-boy Peter Hook, The Charlatans Tim Burgess and Stockport-born DJ Mr Scruff shall be flying the flag for Greater Manchester on the Silent Disco DJ Stage while Corro’s funk and soul man, Craig Charles and Huey ‘Fun Lovin’ Criminal’ Morgan will be playing out the night from the main stage.

See the full line-up here.

During the day the Victoria Warehouse Hotel will also play host to a separately ticketed Festival Fringe event between 12-3.20pm and 3.40-7pm.

The Fringe event shall see Salfordian street-bard (and the only thing thinner than graphene) John Cooper Clarke, former label boss Alan McGee and broadcaster/author/Northern media bloke Stuart Maconie amongst others take to the spoken-word stage, a collection of the North West’s best independent record shops coming together at the Cornershop, a photographic exhibition by Jason Joyce and a film screening area curated by Grammy Award-winning film and music video maker, Don Letts.

Peter Salmon, Director BBC North, says: “The North West music scene is vibrant and eclectic, with Manchester and BBC Radio 6 Music at its heart. We are thrilled the network's inaugural festival with its imaginative programme is based here and shared with the nation.”

Street-poet John Cooper Clarke: the only thing thinner than graphene

Victoria Warehouse have also just announced the winners of their search to find the 'Sound of Victoria Warehouse', rumbunctious four-piece Grimsby-Manchester band Orphan Boy scooped the prize launched last week on twitter.

The ruthless punk-indie giggers already have two albums in the coffers, Shop Local (2008) and Passion, Pain and Loyalty (2010), and are currently working on an untitled third album.

Orphan Boy had this to say: "We won the Victoria Warehouse competition? Get outta town... OB are the Newcastle United of the indie world no more."

Victoria Warehouse interior