April 23, 2002 — With most of the artists now confirmed, London's Royal Festival Hall announces the lineup for David Bowie's Meltdown 2002, including some of Bowie's favorite artists in a month of music, film and visual arts.

For the tenth annual Meltdown, Bowie -- the festival director -- will perform himself, "The New Heathens' Night," June 29 at the Royal Festival Hall, sharing the bill with the Dandy Warhols, followed by a DJ set from Jonathan Ross in the Ballroom.

Other concert highlights include Gorillaz' Space Monkeyz Dub Session, a one-off Meltdown event which sees the rambunctious virtual band collaborating with the ex-Specials/Fun Boy Three vocalist Terry Hall at the RFH on June 21. Gonzales supports the show. Prior to it will be free entertainment in the Ballroom from Canada's Langley Schools Music Project (Revisited) and Terry Edwards and the Scapegoats, playing Bowie-dub, ska and rock-steady. Accepting Bowie's invitation the following night, pop giants Coldplay, with support from Pete Yorn, perform material from their forthcoming album, as will the darkly sensual Suede June 23, playing their first London show in three years. Supergrass, proving that Britpop yielded a group of lasting appeal, will also air new work at the RFH June 28, with support from Bobby Conn.

While the beauty of Mercury Rev raises temperatures in the RFH June 27, next door, Badly Drawn Boy will be giving a second consecutive, rare intimate show at the QEH. A couple of other bands will also offer two bites each at the same venue a week earlier; new wave and archetypal indie rockers Television, June 19 and 20; and Asian Dub Foundation (providing a live score to Mathieu Kassovitz' film-portrait of "Parisian Youth"), La Haine, June 21 and 22.

Debuting a new band, Neil Hannon's lush Divine Comedy play June 17, prior to which Finnish accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen play the songs of David Bowie in the RFH Ballroom, as part of the BBC Radio 3 Free Meltdown Stage (details of more events to be announced soon). The next night in the QEH, Kimmo Pohjonen's Kluster create extraordinary multi-dimensional sounds, sharing the bill with the Lonesome Organist (aka Jeremy Jacobson), the one-man band whose skill with his thrift-store assemblage of so many instruments always amazes audiences.

Another of Bowie's inspired double bills is US cult singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston, paired with the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, from whom Bowie borrowed the Stardust moniker for his own Ziggy creation, on June 15 in the QEH. The Waterboys go acoustic in the QEH June 16 and master of satire Harry Hill, honored as the only non-musician in Bowie's live lineup, brings his hilarious observations to the South Bank June 17.

Visual Art:
An exhibition is also staged as an integral part of David Bowie's Meltdown 2002. The group of artists presented in "Sound and Vision" (Royal Festival Hall Level 2 Foyer, 10 - 29 June) have been selected from BowieArt, Bowie's website that allows direct access to the talents of young artists, giving them the exposure they deserve at an important time in their careers. As current or recent graduates from top British colleges, all the artists raise questions of articulation without relying exclusively on the purely visual. Selected works are concerned with the intensities of musical or popular pleasures, employing contemporary culture as their language or sound as their source. Artists include Gaia Alessi and Richard Bradbury, kr buxey, Tsai-Wei Chen, Anthony Gross, Daniel Howard-Birt, Graham Hudson, Luke Oxley, Seb Patane, Giles Round and Mathew Sawyer.

Works in "Sound and Vision" range from reconfigured footage of hysterical female fans at Tom Jones concerts, to a light piece that re-works a Grandmaster Flash lyric, to an orchestral war between two competing mixing decks and a living flowerbed that suspends an isolated declaration within its flora.