The performer will tour the country during he months of February and March and will include stops in Liverpool, London and Glasgow.

The news arrives after James had performed a series of concerts last October under the name Light and which all remained secret.

It’s emerged that he’s been spending most of the last 24 months recording a new album but details concerning its release still need to be revealed.

The young McCartney said that his music is influenced by such acts as The Beatles, Radiohead, Nirvana, The Cure, PJ Harvey as well as what he calls “all good music”. He defines his music as “rock’n'roll, clean-sounding and vocal”.

James has revealed that his album is being mixed in both in Sussex and in New York, adding that the songs, which have been written over the course of the last decade, explore themes such spirituality, love and family amongst others.
James McCartney UK tour dates:

Liverpool O2 Academy 2 (February 25)
York Fibbers (26)
Newcastle O2 Academy 2 (28)
Manchester The Ruby Lounge (March 2)
Nottingham Bodega (4)
Tunbridge Wells The Forum (7)
Brighton Audio (8)
London Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen (9)
London 100 Club (10)
Bristol Cooler (13)
Edinburgh Cabaret Voltaire (14)
Glasgow King Tut’s (17)
Birmingham O2 Academy 3 (19)
Cardiff Barfly (20)
Meanwhile, the career of his illustrious father has been put on the spot by one of Britain’s most recognized band managers.

Alan McGee recently claimed that performers such as Paul McCartney should retire at 40.
 
The impresario, credited as being one of the creators of “Cool Britannia” and who managed bands like Oasis and Primal Scream, said that all rock star should retire at 40.

McGee singled out McCartney for particular criticism. He said “John Lennon is probably firing bullets from another dimension as we speak. Just give in, Paul.”

Them Crooked Vultures has been announced at the event, scheduled to take place between June 11 and 13.

The rock collective – featuring Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones and Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme will be joining recently announced Australian act AC/DC as well as Stone Temple Pilots, Wolfmother, Deftones, Bullet For My Valentine, Motorhead, Volbeat and Megadeth.

Further acts should be announced very soon. One act strongly speculated for this year’s event is US band Van Halen.

This year’s Download festival will be the eight and will also mark the 30 years of rock festivals at Donington Park. The venue was introduced to rack festival tradition with the Monsters Of Rock bash in 1980.

Tickets for the Download festival will go on sale this Friday, January 29.

Meanwhile, Them Crooked Vultures have revealed details for an upcoming American mini tour.

Starting next month, the band will play only three shows.

Them Crooked Vultures will kick-off the tour with at night at New York’s Roseland Ballroom on February 8.

The band will then play North Carolina on the tenth and Georgia on the eleventh.

Besides the Download festival, the band will also take part to the Coachella festival in April.

Frontman James Murphy and company are said to kick off their UK jaunt in the British Capital with a date at the Brixton Academy on April 23 before heading to the rest of the tour in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Bristol.

LCD Soundsystem have said they will be performing songs from their still nameless third album at the concerts.

Tickets have been availbable since 9am January 22.
LCD Soundsystem will They play:

London O2 Academy Brixton – April 23
Birmingham O2 Academy – 26
Leeds O2 Academy  -27
Manchester University – May 1
Bristol O2 Academy – 2
Meanwhile, James Murphy during an interview with NME.com admitted that LCD Soundsystem’s third album might be the band’s last.

After confirming that the record was still untitled, Murphy said that next LCD Soundsystem album “should probably be the last one.”

Despite being aware that he made similar statements in the pasts, he said that he doubts he would repeat himself this time.

In the interview, Murphy visibly expressed a desire to pursue his music career, highlighting that it would be the LCD Soundsystem name which would be retired and not himself.

The musical style of LCD Soundsystem is sort of half way between dance and punk music, and is spiced up with elements of disco and various other styles. LCD Soundsystem has gaine a huge following in the UK and its two previous albums — LCD Soundsystem and Sound of Silver — reached the top 40 of the UK Albums Chart.

American heavy metal act Slayer has announced a series of revised scheduled dates for their upcoming UK tour.

The concerts had already been cancelled twice because of health problems. Slayer bassist Tom Araya has been suffering from major back problems which have required surgery and forced the postponement and the subsequent rescheduling of the UK gigs.

The thrash-metal band had announced less than two weeks ago that their dates scheduled for their forthcoming UK tour were cancelled.

It was announced at the time that Araya needed an operation on his back to solve a reoccurring problem.

These cancellations had first affected the January and February American and Canadian dates of the Carnage Tour then the European gigs booked for March and April.

Luckily, there was no North East date, but any fans who’ve made arrangements to travel to see them in Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Nottingham, Birmingham or London will be mighty peeved.

It was revealed that Araya, notorious for swinging his long hair while performing, became gradually bothered by serious back problems as the band was touring Australia, New Zealand and Japanese last October.

The band continued with the tour despite of the problems experienced by Araya, but the bassist immediately consulted with an orthopaedic specialist when he returned home.

It’s now been revealed that Slayer will open their UK tour in Leeds on May 26 and will subsequently move on to play Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham and London for the tour’s final two gigs.

Slayer UK tour:

Leeds Academy (May 26)
Glasgow Barrow lands (27)
Birmingham Academy (29)
Manchester Academy (30)
Nottingham Rock City (31)
London Forum (June 2,3)

As soon as a March 5 in Northampton, frontman Ian Anderson and his bandmates will kick off a lengthy series of gigs which bring the band to practically every part of the UK. Jethro Tull will wrap it up on the first of April in Sheffield.

Singer and flutist Anderson said they are several songs of the music created by Jethro Tull over the course of their career which have rarely, if ever, rarely, been performed live. Anderson said that they wanted to perform this material to the 2010 tour along with other more habitual and trusty favourites.

Jethro Tull tour dates in the UK:

Northampton Royal And Derngate (March 5)
Oxford New Theatre (6)
St Albans Arena (7)
Torquay Princess Theatre (9)
Brighton Dome (10)
Ipswich Regent Theatre (11)
Reading Hexagon (12)
Southampton Guildhall (13)
High Wycombe The Swan (14)
Swindon Wyvern Theatre (16)
London Union Chapel (17)
Bristol Colston Hall (18)
Croydon Fairfield Halls (19)
Derby Assembly Rooms (22)
Manchester Apollo (23)
Birmingham Symphony Hall (24)
York Opera House (25)
Newcastle City Hall (27)
Aberdeen Music Hall (28)
Perth Concert Hall (29)
Glasgow Pavilion Theatre (30)
Liverpool Philharmonic (31)
Sheffield City Hall (April 1)

Jethro Tull also plans to perform nine concerts in North America during the month of June, amongst which the ones in Miami (4), Boston (15) and Toronto (18).

The band returns to Europe in July for gigs in Athens on the ninetieth and Thessaloniki twentieth.

The forty-eight-year-old comedian is scheduled to perform a series of stand-up gigs in 20 countries, including gigs in America and the United Kingdom.

Sell-out crowds in the UK last year have confirmed his popularity.

Gervais, creator and main protagonist of the successful The Office show, told reporters that he’d be performing a few days at Wembley as well as a few dates worldwide, all part of his first comedy tour.

He said that although The Office had been shown in 90 different countries, he would only plan to perform in 20 for his stand-up performances. He revealed that a few larger gigs would be included, such as in arenas and even stadiums.

The comic actor said that he was increasingly enjoying performing stand-up stints. He talked about his stroke of luck with his show, which has opened doors for him, adding that he felt a little guilty over the fact that he had it easy while other stand-up comedians may struggle for years before getting an act on TV.

His act, the Ricky Gervais Live: Science Tour, has been confirmed for the Wembley Arena in London, the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles and the Madison Square Garden in New York.

The British comic-turned-Hollywood star is also set to perform in other countries which will be announced later.

Gervais is preparing for his next job, one of the most important events on the showbiz calendar in America. the Golden Globes at the weekend for which he will be host.

The company has halted the manufacturing and marketing of Polaroid cameras and film, its flagship product, on February 2008. Despite that event, the company still sells a variety of digital products as well as its iconic sunglass lenses and has considered the rising star as the perfect representative for a “speciality line”.

At the official announcement , Lady Gaga expressed her joy by saying how proud she was to to be teaming up with imaging company as the creative director and creator of specialty projects.

She said that The Haus of Gaga, which is a collective who collaborates with the pop star on her clothing, sounds and stage sets, has been creating prototypes in the area of innovative fashion-technology-photography.

In her excitement, Gaga posted of picture of her displaying her new business card clearly reading: “Lady Gaga – Creative Director”.

Lady Gaga, also knows by her real name Stefani Germanotta, has reaped phenomenally rapid success after the release of The Fame, her debut record in August 2008.

At only 23 years of age, Gaga has already won more than 33 awards and is in line to add a Grammy Award on her list of trophies as she’s been nominated for six of them, which are scheduled to be revealed later this month.

It was recently reported that her extravagant taste in stage sets, costumes and various equipment required for her tours has created a huge hole in the budget of her current world tour.

But as a close Lady Gaga source revealed, the performer has got no interest in such matters.

Lady Gaga will bring her The Monster Ball Tour to the UK in February and March:

Manchester, MEN Arena (February 18)
Liverpool, Liverpool Arena (24)
London, O2 Arena (26)
Glasgow, SECC (March 1)
Cardiff, CIA (3)
Newcastle, Newcastle Arena (4)
Birmingham, LG Arena (5)
Sheffield, Sheffield Arena (7)
Nottingham, Nottingham Arena (8)

The budding star is known for her pricey stage costumes and props, such as a giant bathtub reported to be worth $100,000, are hiking her expenditures on the North American leg of her world tour which equates to no money in the coffers yet.

It’s currently believed that the performer’s self-proclaimed ‘ostentatious’ series of gigs has lost almost the staggering sum of $4million so far and it may take quite a while before she gets a grips over her spending habits and actually puts herself back in the black.

A source close to Lady Gaga said that her concerts are presently running at a loss hand over fist due to the fact that she and her team have spent gigantic sums on expensive outfits, technical equipment and extravagant set designs.

The source explained that one stage alone cost Gaga £500,000. However, the new darling of pop music apparently gets what ever she calls for. She loves to shock and hse has the wardrobe to match that, which costs large sums of money.

Her Lady Gaga representative told reporters that although she couldn’t comment on the allegations, she was not surprised. The spokeswoman said that the singer has the tendency to put all she’s got into her live performances and she has no concerns about the financial aspects of things.
Lady Gaga is scheduled to perform in the UK in February and March:

Manchester, MEN Arena (February 18)
Liverpool, Liverpool Arena (24)
London, O2 Arena (26)
Glasgow, SECC (March 1)
Cardiff, CIA (3)
Newcastle, Newcastle Arena (4)
Birmingham, LG Arena (5)
Sheffield, Sheffield Arena (7)
Nottingham, Nottingham Arena (8)

Talent show X Factor star, eighteen-year-old Diana Vickers, has scheduled her official solo career kick off for April 2010, when she will launch her first single.

The young performer, who managed a respectable fourth spot during the 2008 edition of the X Factor, has chosen April 19 as the launch date for her initial studio effort called “Once”.

Concert promoters SJM, via a statement, described the song as a quirky, synth-based track.

Cathy Dennis, the songwriter who is responsible for the immensely popular ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ performed by Kylie Minogue, has co-written Vickers debut single.

The budding performer has also revealed details surrounding her first ever tour of the UK.

Diana Vickers is scheduled to perform six March gigs across Britain.

Diana Vickers’ first tour:
Bristol, Cooler, (March 20)

Birmingham, Glee Club (22)

London, Water Rats (23)

Manchester, Deaf Institute (25)

Glasgow, Classic Grand (26)

Blackburn, King Georges Hall (27)

As previously announced, the singer-songwriter has got some interesting backing for her album in the persons of Beck, the Beastie Boys and Santigold, who remixed some tracks on her record.

Norah Jones is scheduled to perform at these dates:

Manchester Apollo (June 21)
Hammersmith HMV Apollo (22)
Also touring the UK in the coming months is young budding performer Laura Marling. She will play concerts in Ireland as well.

Her concert run begins on April 9 in Belfast and will stretch until the 25th when she will be performing in London.

Beginning in Belfast on April 9, the singer-songwriter will then head to Dublin, before returning to the UK for shows.

Marling is scheduled to relase a new album, her second, in 2010 and she has just issued a new track called ‘Goodbye England (Covered In Snow)’. This track has been released in a 7-inch vinyl limited edition.

Laura Marling UK and Ireland tour dates:

Belfast Limelight (April 9)
Dublin The Academy (10)
Manchester Lowry (12)
Glasgow Fruitmarket (13)
Edinburgh Queen’s Hall (14)
Birmingham Alexandra Theatre (16)
Cambridge Corn Exchange (17)
Newcastle Tyne Theatre (19)
York Opera House (20)
Bristol Colston Hall (21)
Southampton Guildhall (23)
London Palladium (25)