It’s almost time for tens of thousands of people to flock to the fields of Heaton Park for this year’s Parklife festival, which is bigger than ever in 2024.
The huge festival brings together the biggest names in dance, house, hip hop, grime and electronic music for two days of partying.
This year’s line-up is arguably its biggest yet, featuring headline performances from Doja Cat, Disclosure, Becky Hill and loads more.
And even with the incredible European debut of Fisher and Chris Lake’s Under Construction now pulled from the line-up, it’s still set to be Manchester’s biggest party of the year.
If you can believe it, it’s been 14 years since the first-ever Parklife was held and since then it’s gone on to be not only a Manc music institution and rite of passage, but one of the most famous festivals around the world – we’re just lucky it happens to be right on our doorstep.
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With that in mind, here’s everything you need to know about Parklife 2023, from who’s playing and where to how you’ll be getting there and back.
Parklife 2024 line-up
Aitch performing at Parklife 2023. Credit: Sam Neill
The city’s biggest music event has lined up huge names like Doja Cat, Disclosure and J Hus to perform over the weekend of 8 and 9 June.
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Returning Parklife favourites Peggy Gou, Becky Hill, and Four Tet are also heading up the huge 2024 Parklife line-up.
The pop and R&B side of the line-up will be taken care of by names like Sugababes, Anne-Marie and Mahalia.
Also on the bill will be Kaytranada, Camelphat, Rudim3ntal, Nia Archives, Hybrid Minds, Patrick Topping, Barry Can’t Swim, Folamour, Dom Dolla, Casisdead, Wilkinson, Shy FX: Specials, Interplanetary Criminal, Sammy Virji b2b Interplanetary Criminal, Kenya Grace, ANOTR, PAWSA, TSHA, Girls Don’t Sync, Max Dean, Hedex, Bou, Uncle Waffles, Skream, Jyoty, Loco Dice, Sub Focus and loads more.
The good news if you’ve not yet booked your Parklife tickets is that there are still some available, whether you’re picking a day to go or want to take on the whole weekend.
How much is a VIP upgrade and what does it get you?
Having done a fair few Parklife festivals now, we can confirm that the VIP upgrade is well worth the money.
You’ll get fast-track entry to the festival (no queues for you!), and access to a whole separate area of the festival to relax in.
The VIP area at Parklife has exclusive DJs, a street food market, cocktail and spritz bars, lockers, fast-track loos, a make-up artist and glitter station, and even a streetwear stall by Suzy Loves Milo.
It’s £35.50 to upgrade a day ticket to VIP, or £34.50 for weekend ticket-holders – again, check here to book yours.
Parklife 2024 festival site map
The map of the Parklife festival site for 2024
Parklife 2024 dates and opening times
Saturday 8 June : 12pm – 11pm
Sunday 9 June : 1pm – 11pm
Last entry into the festival is 5pm
Stage splits for Parklife 2024 headliners
It’s always the eternal question for festival-goers – how am I actually going to see all this amazing music and one weekend, and who’s going to clash this year?
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Parklife has already confirmed the stage splits for its 2024 instalment, so we know exactly who’s going to be playing which stage.
Stage times aren’t out yet but usually drop a good few days before the festival – you can download the Parklife app (here for Apple, here for Android) for all you need to know.
How to get to and from Parklife festival 2024
As Parklife is a non-camping festival, getting home at the end of the night is always a question people ask.
Organisers make it as straight-forward as possible for people to get back home after the stages wrap up in Heaton Park.
The fastest and easiest way to travel to and from Parklife is with the official Parklife Travel Pass, a partnership with Transport for Greater Manchester (Bee Network), Manchester City Council and Parklife, which allows you to travel on the direct Parklife Shuttle Bus and Metrolink service from Manchester City Centre.
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Buses will operate back into Manchester from the early evening, until the site is clear, and fans should use the NORTH EXIT of the site for the bus departure point.
Tickets are just £5.50 per day.
You can see more travel advice from Parklife here.
Review | Villanelle debut: Liam Gallagher’s son’s band release their first track – here’s our review
Danny Jones
Liam Gallagher’s son, Gene, and his band Villanelle, have officially released their debut single to the masses, and since we’re still very much immersing ourselves in everything even remotely to do with Oasis, we thought we’d give this first track a review.
Now, if you’re expecting a familiar Britpop vibe like his dad and uncle used to bash out back in the day, you’d be very wrong…
It’s one thing to settle into something similar to what you’ve grown up around and try to continue a lineage if you’re from a successful family – especially with a legacy as important and influential as the one left by Liam and Noel – but we’re glad to report they’ve done something pretty different.
24-year-old Gene Gallagher and his bandmates Ben Taylor (guitar), Jack Schiavo (bass), and Andrew Richmond (drums) haven’t just tried to do an impression of Oasis; instead, they’ve found their own sound, and while it does give somewhat of an old-school flavour, it’s not what we expected.
It takes literally milliseconds for you to click into realising the vibe they’re going for.
‘Hinge’ is a simplistic but hard-hitting, grungey and dark debut from Villanelle, who, despite having played a number of in-progress songs live over the last year or so, have only just dropped their first studio single.
In fact, they’ve actually taken the admittedly bizarre and unorthodox first steps of having already played live with Liam Gallagher on the Definitely Maybe 30th anniversary tour before they actually released anything people can easily listen to outside of their live performances.
Nevertheless, the young four-piece introduces Villanelle as the latest post-punk outfit amidst the ongoing revival of the classic rock genre.
That is to say that punk is a tried and true classic style of music, not that these lads are trying to sound like The Rolling Stones…
Anyway, we’re getting sidetracked: Villanelle draw plenty of influences from both original and contemporary examples of this sonic subculture, and while it isn’t explosive per se, ‘Hinge’ is short, direct and hits the same formulaic notes.
It’s also fair to say you can hear a bit of the recognisable LG whine in Gene’s vocals at times, too. Listen to it in full down below and see if you agree.
Even the basic found-footage style video fits into the same category.
To call it straightforward isn’t intended as any kind of a diss, by the way – some of our favourite tunes and best artists spearheading the renaissance of the punk scene write like this.
What we will say is that it looks like bloody good fun to both play and listen to in a small, sweaty room, with plenty of pits and people bouncing off the walls.
Gallagher Sr. might be surprised to see his son going for a slightly heavier, more hardcore route with his sound, but he can’t accuse him of forgetting his roots as the child of a ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Star.’
The boys are actually hitting the road this winter, including a date at The Castle Hotel in the Northern Quarter, if you fancy grabbing a ticket.
You can grab your tickets to see Villanelle on tour HERE, and in the meantime, let us know what you think of their debut track down in the comments.
Johnny Marr teases his work on upcoming Gorillaz album
Danny Jones
Legendary Manchester musician Johnny Marr has revealed he features on the new Gorillaz album, adding even more interest in the highly anticipated release.
The Mountain is the ninth studio LP from the musical collective led by Damon Albarn, which is set to drop in early 2026, more than three years on from their last album, Cracker Island.
Although the virtual band made up of several real-life creatives (though the ex-Blur frontman and artist, Jamie Hewlett, technically remain the only two consistent core members) hasn’t been away for too long, each new project brings a wave of excitement.
With that in mind, we have no shame in admitting we have even more interest in Gorillaz’s latest album now that we know Johnny Marr is attached to it.
I’m pleased to share that I appear on four tracks on the upcoming Gorillaz album The Mountain. It’s a privilege to be a part of this record along with so many great artists. #Gorillaz#JohnnyMarrpic.twitter.com/KXVZxgyGg9
In the new rundown of tunes already posted earlier this month, the former Smiths songwriter and lead guitarist features on four different songs on the new record. You can see it in full down below:
Gorrilaz – The Mountain tracklist
1. The Mountain (feat. Dennis Hopper, Ajay Prasanna, Anoushka Shankar, Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash) 2. The Moon Cave (feat. Asha Puthli, Bobby Womack, Dave Jolicoeur, Jalen Ngonda and Black Thought) 3. The Happy Dictator (feat. Sparks) 4. The Hardest Thing (feat. Tony Allen) 5. Orange County (feat. Bizarrap, Kara Jackson and Anoushka Shankar) 6. The God of Lying (feat. IDLES) 7. The Empty Dream Machine (feat. Black Thought, Johnny Marr and Anoushka Shankar) 8. The Manifesto (feat. Trueno and Proof) 9. The Plastic Guru (feat. Johnny Marr and Anoushka Shankar) 10. Delirium (feat. Mark E. Smith) 11. Damascus (feat. Omar Souleyman and Yasiin Bey) 12. The Shadowy Light (feat. Asha Bhosle, Gruff Rhys, Ajay Prasanna, Amaan Ali Bangash, and Ayaan Ali Bangash) 13. Casablanca (feat. Paul Simonon and Johnny Marr) 14. The Sweet Prince (feat. Ajay Prasanna, Johnny Marr and Anoushka Shankar) 15. The Sad God (feat. Black Thought, Ajay Prasanna and Anoushka Shankar)
As you can see, the 61-year-old appears for the first time on song seven, ‘The Empty Dream Machine’, as well as ‘The Plastic Guru’, ‘Casablanca’, and the penultimate track on the album, ‘The Sweet Prince’.
It’ll be interesting to see how he fits into the captivating soundscape already teased by the group, with Gorillaz having now shared ‘The Happy Dictator’ featuring art pop duo Sparks.
A strong and politically loaded start.
Marr – who only released his fourth batch of solo material, Fever Dream Pts 1-4, back in 2022 – has continued to craft and produce with countless other artists over the past few decades, sharing the studio with fellow icons such as Noel Gallagher, Billy Bragg, Talking Heads and many more.
He even helped create the score for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 soundtrack with legendary composer Hans Zimmer.
That being said, we can only hope to hear some of his famous guitar tones sprinkled throughout this album, though it’s still unclear as to exactly how much input he had on The Mountain overall.
What we do know about the album is that it’s the first to be released via Albarn’s new record label KONG; it’s 15 tracks, and was largely made following extended recording sessions across India, with the likes of Ajay Prasanna, Omar Souleyman and Anoushka Shankar, joining IDLES, Jalen Ngonda and other collabs.
Perhaps most excitingly, the announcement of ‘Gorillaz no.9’ came alongside a series of tour dates, including one right here in Manchester. We can’t wait to see 2D, Murdoc Niccals, Russel Hobbs and Noodle ‘live’ in 0161.
Daisy Jackson -
31st May 2024 
