Sting, Manic Street Preachers, Snow Patrol, Travis and more to play BBC Radio 2 In The Park festival

James Manic, Sting, Gary Lightbody — (Image credit: Shirlaine Forrest/Redferns | Sergione Infuso/Corbis via Getty Images | Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns)

Sting and the Pet Shop Boys will headline BBC Radio 2's In The Park festival in Preston in September, with support from Manic Street Preachers, Snow Patrol, Travis and more.

“I’ve never been to Preston in my life, says former Police frontman Sting, “so I’m really looking forward to joining the Radio 2 line up as the Saturday headliner.”

“I want to give a full picture of my entire career. Of course I will sing Roxanne, Message In A Bottle, and Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, but there will also be some deep cuts as well.”

Other acts on the bill include Sugababes, All Saints' Shaznay Lewis, 90's indie rockers Shed Seven, Craig David and Kim Wilde.

Tickets for the festival go on sale tomorrow, June 4, at 8.15 am, here.

Radio 2 festival in Preston poster — (Image credit: BBC)

Snow Patrol and Travis have new albums coming this year. Snow Patrol will release The Forest Is The Path on September 13, while Travis will release L.A. Times on July 12.

Travis' Fran Healy describes L.A. Times as his band's “most personal album since The Man Who” while Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody describes his band's first album in six years as “the beginning of something.”

He says: “This album took us on many uncharted routes, with sometimes weird and sometimes wonderful turns, and so it’s hard not to think of the start of this album as a new beginning. We honour the past, deeply. This is our thirtieth year, so we have an awful lot of it, past I mean. Tons of it. We have a profound love and respect for all who have been on this journey with us those many years. But while we honour the past we also want to cherish the present and look to the future. So this is the beginning of something, and we are so excited to share it with you all.”

Artists

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.