New Newcastle music festival announced for Times…

New Newcastle music festival announced for Times Square with headliners including Happy Mondays and Ian Brown

A new festival called In Between Days will make its debut in Newcastle this summer, it has been announced, with a first wave of bands including Happy Mondays, Ian Brown and The Wombats already revealed.

The outdoor music festival will play out in Times Square over three days from May 26-28 - the Friday to Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend - and organisers Tokyo Live say many more acts are yet to be announced. There's a potential surprise for the Bank Holiday Monday too and tickets are set to go on sale next Wednesday, March 29.

Aaron Mellor, event organiser and owner of Tokyo Live and city centre club Digital, says of the chosen location: “Centre for Life and Digital make a perfect inner city festival site and we are very proud to be able to stage this incredible event in the Newcastle we all love.” The music will kick off on the Friday with Australian indie band DMA’s - whose visit will follow the release of their new album, How Many Dream - and joining the first day bill will be local heroes Andrew Cushin and Liam Fender plus indie rockers Lottery Winners and London-born but Geordie-bred Lizzie Esau.

Then Ian Brown - the multi-instrumentalist and former lead singer of The Stone Roses - will headline on Saturday. Brown followed up his frontman role with the alt-rock band legends of the eighties and nineties with a switch to a solo career and in 2018 he released his first solo material in nine years with single First World Problems, followed in 2019 by his seventh album Ripples.

Singer Ian Brown (Getty Images North America)

Saturday will also see Happy Mondays on the Times Square stage as well as indie legends Cast and fellow scousers Lightning Seeds. There will be a double headline draw on the Sunday with Ireland's Two Door Cinema Club - who released fifth album Keep on Smiling last year - and The Wombats who themselves topped 2022's album charts with Fix Yourself; Not The World.

The festival team are hinting at a possible fourth day addition with "something very special" to announce for the Bank Holiday Monday. Music fans can expect a blast and Aaron said: “After Covid and the utilities crisis, it's great to be able to get audiences back together and enjoying the very best in music."

Tickets will be released on March 29 from 9am - keep an eye out here. See the full festival programme - to date - below.