Harvest Festival 2nd Lineup Announcement Delayed… Again

Harvest Festival has already revealed it’s killer first lineup announcement last June, headlined by sheet music peddler Beck, everyone’s favourite Icelandic celestials Sigur Ros, along with a bill featuring Grizzly Bear, The Dandy Warhols, Ben Folds Five, Mike Patton’s Mondo Cane and many, many more.

But since that first round of acts, punters have been promised a second set of bands to be announced since mid-July. The source? From Harvest Festivals’ own boss of course – serial twitterer AJ Maddah - who, to his credit, has regularly updated fans’ inquiries with responses about the state of the festival.

Given the recent monster lineup annoucnement for his other major festival, a little thing called Soundwave, Maddah’s presumably had his hands tied. So much so that the anticipated 2nd round announcement has been delayed not once, but twice.

First saying that we’d expect it early August:

@agleeson2 Aug 16

— AJ (@iamnotshouting) August 5, 2012

Then pushing it back to late August:

@fainting_spells Aug 22 is the designated date.

— AJ (@iamnotshouting) August 13, 2012

Considering the mercurial nature of these things, don’t be surprised to see that date being pushed back again, especially considering that Soundwave’s own second lineup announcement has already begun leaking with confirmations as much as it’s Blink 182/Offspring featuring first announcement.

Why all the fuss over the second round of acts for Harvest anyway? Well, because as FasterLouder points out the festvial’s inaugural appearance last year contained a follow-up announcement that boasted the likes of Brooklyn art-rock outfit TV On The Radio, Scottish post-rock roylaty Mogwai and indie cohorts Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

With that kind of calibre, there’s many whetting their lips for a similarly star-studded reveal for this year’s Harvest. Though Maddah might be using his twitter as a sounding board for acts on the Soundwave front, he’s been uncharacteristically secretive about the Harvest announcements, the closest we’ve had to a description is the following:

@truthdolie 2nd announce will be a mix of international and local.

— AJ (@iamnotshouting) June 25, 2012

So who’s topping the rumour mill? Well, it’s anyone’s guess, but given the meagre female presence in the lineup, we here at Tone Deaf we have our fingers crossed for Regina Spektor, given that her upcoming tour to Australia is selling out off the back of her latest album What We Saw From The Cheap Seats; and Bat For Lashes – who has her highly-anticipated new record out the month before Harvest kicks off.

Combine that with the fact that she’s only visited Australia once before, for Sydney’s VIVID Festival, and her musical friendship with Harvest headliner Beck… seems like a good fit to us.