News 2007
Celebrity music panel to choose Road to V winner
24/04/2007
- All star judging panel announced to choose winners
- Road to V received record entries with over 3,000 bands registering
- Performances of finalists to be shown on C4 in the run up to this year’s Virgin Mobile V Festival
24.04.07: This year’s Road to V competition has been bigger and better than ever. With over 3,000 bands to choose from, it has been a tough decision but experts have finally whittled it down to the lucky 14 finalists who are confirmed as Bo Pepper, Dylan James, India Mill, Johnny Foreigner, The Jubilees, Kagura, Maxfield, New Cassettes, Our Fold, The Outside Royalty, Rosalita, Seven Heroes, The Brightlights and The Guests.
It is now up to the panel of expert judges who have been selected to send two bands to victory as winners of Road to V 2007. The panel is made up of the infamous ‘Mags’ from Metropolis music, top label executive James Endeacott and top pop/indie front man of The Feeling, Dan Gillespie Sells.
The final 14 bands will be performing a series of live gigs at Carling Academy Islington (15/16/17th May) and Carling Academy Liverpool (9/10th May) in front of the expert judging panel and filmed by Remedy Productions for a 10 part series that showcases the 14 brand new bands, concluding with the 2 winners’ performances and experiences at V festival.
As one of the music industry's leading promoters, Mags knows exactly what he's looking for when it comes to Road To V. After serving as one of our trusted experts last year, the Metropolis Music man has since taken winners Bombay Bicycle Club under his wing as a direct result of their success in the competition. He also boasts the likes of Hard Fi, Editors, The Fratellis and The Twang on his roster.
James Endeacott is best known as the man who discovered The Libertines, The View and countless others, it follows that the qualities James looks for in any band are 'attitude and a beating heart'. Having gone on to found 1965 Records, he has recently signed up the likes of Ripchord, The Metros and, of course, The View. When asked recently what a band should do to get signed, he simply replied: "Surprise me."
Dan Gillespie Sells is the enigmatic front man of top pop band The Feeling, who’s top hits include “Sewn”, “Fill My Little World” “Never Be Lonely” and “Love It When You Call”. He is delighted to be involved with Road to V and he tends to favour great big no-nonsense, hook-filled, giant-chorused pop music – music for the masses, only intelligent, with sunshine hooks and killer choruses that everyone can hum, from plumbers to professors.
He says: "There are no guilty pleasures anymore. You're allowed to like Andrew Gold, ELO, Supertramp or 10cc. It's really liberating." So Dan will be looking for catchy, larger than life poppy tunes that will really get this years V festival off to a rocking start.
All you need to do to get your hands on free tickets to Carling Academy gigs is simply text the date you would like to attend, followed by the number of tickets you would like (e.g.‘15x3’) to 80150.
Line up as follows:
WED 9 MAY - LIVERPOOL: SEVEN HEROES / THE BRIGHTLIGHTS / INDIA MILL
THU10 MAY - LIVERPOOL: OUR FOLD / THE GUESTS / KAGURA
TUE15 MAY - LONDON: AMY BULLMAN (RESERVE) / THE JUBILEES / BO PEPPER
WED 16 MAY - LONDON: JOHNNY FOREIGNER / NEW CASSETTES / ROSALITA
THU 17 MAY - LONDON: THE OUTSIDE ROYALTY / MAXFIELD / DYLAN JAMES
For further information, please contact:
Penny Brignell 020 7291 3000 penny@henryshouse.com
Rachel Moule 020 7291 3033 rachel@henryshouse.com
Virgin Mobile:
Virgin Mobile Press Office 0845 600 6272 or press.office@virginmobile.com
Rosie Newey 020 7909 2079 rosie.newey@virginmedia.co.uk
About Virgin Mobile:
At Virgin Mobile we love music, a lot of people say they love music but we really do and we know that music is important to a lot of our customers. We also put our money where our mouth is by supporting live music events from grass roots up to festivals.
We sponsor the gig guide in the Fly magazine distributed through Barfly venues and host monthly gigs at the Barfly Birmingham as part of our Virgin Mobile Union activity.
We're the Telecoms sponsor of the Academy Music Group (AMG), the UK’s leading owner and operator of nationwide live music and club venues, including South London’s award winning concert venue, Carling Academy Brixton (NME Best Venue 2007, Vodafone Live Music Awards Best Live Music Venue 2006, Time Out Venue Of The Year 2004) and Shepherd’s Bush Empire (London) (Music Week Awards Best Venue 2005) as well as further Carling Academy venues in Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Islington (London) and Bar Academy venues in Birmingham and Islington (London). In February 2007, AMG announced it had acquired its twelfth site for future development by 2008, The Hippodrome in Brighton. Carling Academy Oxford will open in September 2007. AMG venues attract over 3m customers per annum.
And of course for the last 6 years we've been the headline sponsors of the world famous V Festival, where you'll find Virgin Mobile Angels who'll help lug your beers to your tent as well as the Virgin Mobile Union new band tent that's also a proper indie disco! You could even find yourself playing on the main stage if your band enters our "Road to V" competition in conjunction with Channel 4.
In addition, if you're a Virgin Mobile customer you'll get the chance to go to some exclusive gigs and take 3 of your mates, previous free gigs have included The Charlatans , The Thrills and The Automatic ........and because it's as much about the night out as the gig you might just get a free kebab at the end .
Virgin Mobile is the UK’s largest mobile virtual network operator and uses T-Mobile's network. Since its launch in November 1999, Virgin Mobile has attracted more than 4 million customers.
Virgin Mobile is part of the Virgin Media group. The group is the first to be able to offer `quadruple play’ to customers: mobile and fixed line telephony, broadband internet and television.
