Beck’s Fusions at Castlefield Arena

Beck’s Fusions isn’t Manchester’s first corporate-sponsored arts festival, nor will it be the last. But this one is notable for the line-up the mediocre lager brand has assembled. Headlined by Massive Attack, the Bristol trip-hoppers who haven’t played in Manchester since 2003, other highlights include New York’s Hercules and Love Affair (minus Anthony ‘and the Johnsons’ Hegarty), Sydney’s the Presets and Philadelphia’s Santogold.

And while 13 bands (of varying degrees of fame) alone aren’t enough to sustain this three-day event, it’s beefed up by almost the same number of visual artists - including British collective United Visual Artists, who have worked with Massive Attack in the past, including at Meltdown Festival just last month.

Tickets are free but you inevitably need to subject yourself to future Beck’s marketing campaigns to qualify. With 17,000 tickets available for Friday 5 and Saturday 6 September, you’d have thought it would be easy enough to secure some - but just yesterday I received an email informing me that I still hadn’t been successful.

The deadline for applying is this Wednesday, 20 August, and you’ve got to be over 18 to be at the UK’s ‘biggest ever collaborative art and music event’.

6 Comments so far

Got tickets for the Friday the 5th night, and will blog it up when I get my currently non-existent and nameless at review blog an existence and a name.

Are massive attack really playing live or is it just some massive attack records being played over some pretty lights.

They’re playing live.

yippeeeeeeee. Im going to spread this around now and if its not true then ill blame it on you. and send them in your direction.

I wonder how many “bench” t-shirts will be at this tonight.

I wasn’t really on fashion patrol just great to be there and see massive attack live. Twas excellent crawl back under your rock sanjay.

Santagold were excellent also..

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[...] Beck’s Fusions, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, at Castlefield Arena. Tickets for Friday and Saturday have been given away [...]

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