The Biggest Music Events Of 2008

2008 has been a very busy year: music festivals, music awards, album releases and top hits made the delicious of mass media in the last 12 months.

In the first month of the year, Rage Against the Machine headlined the Big Day Out festivals in Australia and New Zealand, their first shows outside of the United States since reforming, and their first Australian shows in 12 years.

February began with the 50th Grammy Awards that took place at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California USA. In Chile, from 20 to 25 February, hosted the Vina del Mar International Song Festival while the second annual Soundwave Festival was held in Australia. At the end of the month, more precisely on 26, The Spice Girls did their last performace together of their tour The Return of the Spice Girls in Toronto.

The spring season was open by Jakarta International Java Jazz Festival from Jakarta, Indonesia and by The 2008 South by Soutwest Conference and Festivals was held in Austin, Texas, USA. Additionally, the Jazz musician and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttelton announced his retirement from presenting BBC Radio 2’s jazz programme after forty years. On March 20, the Eagles hit the road to promote their album “Long Road Out of Eden” and five days later, The Miami Winter Music Conference was held in Miami Beach Resort&Spa in Miami Florida.

On April 2, Mariah Carey’s single “Touch My Body” from her album “E=MC²” hit the number one position in the US tops, fact that made her the second artist in the whole world with the most number one hit singles before Beatles which maintains its top position with 20 number one singles. On April 19, The Festival Imperial 2008 was held in Autodromo La Guacima in Alajuela, Costa Rica. A week after, The MTV Australia Awards took place in Sydney, the capital of Australia. At the end of the month, Madonna releases her elebenth album, “Hard Candy”, which reached number one in 27 countries.

May began with Girls Aloud’s Tangled Up Tour in Belfast, UK and continued with several festivals: the Give It A Name 2008 festival from Earls Court London, UK; the Sasquatch! Music Festival that took place during the Memorial Day weekend at the George Amphitheatre in central Washington, USA; the fourth annual Mountain Jam Festival from Hunter Mountain, New York, USA and the last but not the least, the Portugal festival Rock In Rio Lisboa 2008 that took place in Parque da Bela Vista, Chelas, Lisbon.

On May 21 David Cook won the season 7 of American Idol with a record of 97 milloin votes.
On May 24, Russia won the 53rd Eurovision Song Contest final that was held in Belgrade, Serbia. Ukrainia came second and Greece third.

On June 1, Westlife played their 10th anniversary concert at Croke Park, in Dublin, Ireland and on June 17, George Michael began his first US tour for 17 years in San Diego, California.
Meanwhile, between 12 and 15 June, the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival was held in Manchester, Tennessee, US, the seventh Isle of Wight Festival was held in Seaclose Park, Newport, UK and the sixth annual Download Festival took place in Donington Park, UK. On June 27, The Nelson Mandela 90th Birthday Tribute charity concert took place in Hyde Park, London, in support of Mandela’s Aids Foundation. On the same day, the Glastonbury Festival was held at Worthy Farm, Somerset, UK. At the end of the month, another festival took place in Ireland, called The Marquee at Cork Festival, whilst Jay-Z and Linkin Park performed at Projekt Revolution at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes, UK.

The first month of summer, July, kept artists and juornalists very busy as there were plenty of music festivals. Between 3-6 July, the O2 Wireless Festival was held in Hyde Park, London UK, the Roskilde Festival was held in Denmark and the Rothbury Music Festival was held in Michigan US. Between 3-7 July, the Rock Werchter fest took place in Belgium and the Heineken Open’er Festival took place in Gdynia, Poland. Between 3-13 July, the Ottawa Bluesfest took place in Canada, while the EXIT Festival 08 took place at Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad, Serbia. On July 20, four festivals were held: the T4 On The Beach music festival in Weston-super-Mare UK, The Oxegen music festival in Kildare Ireland, The All Good Music Festival in Masontown, West Virginia US, The T in the Park music festival in Kinross Scotland.

At the beginning of August, the Lollapalooza music festival took place in Chicago US, followed by the Sziget Festival 2008 from Budapest, Hungary and The Coke Live Music Festival from Poland, where artists like Sean Paul, Timbaland and The Prodigy performed. On September 24, the season 6 of “Australian Idol” began.

Fall came with the release of the album “The Block”, the first studio album in 15 years of New Kids On The Block. On September 7, the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards took place in Hollywood and on September 10, the 22nd Annual ARIA Music Awards was held in Sydney, Australia. Five days later, Queen and Paul Rodgers release The Cosmos Rocks album, the first album of the band with a lead singer other than late Freddie Mercury. On September 25, the former Beatle Paul McCartney performed in a single concert in Israel, at Tel Aviv for the first time since the famous band were banned from Israel in 1965.

In October, Britney Spears rise from number 96 to number one in Billboard Hot 100 with her new single “Womanizer” in just one week. A famous jump that brought her back on tracks.
On October 18, Rihanna became the leading solo female artist with the most number one singles in the last ten years, as she scored her fifth number one song on the Billboard Hot 100. at the end of the month, Guns N’Roses released their first single in 9 years: the title track of “Chinese Democracy”.

On November 24, Linkin Park released their second live album “Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes”.

In December, Beyonce made Billboard history as she and rapper T.I. had two singles simultaneously in the top 4 spots on the Billboard Hot 100: Beyonce’s “If I Were a Boy” at number 3 and “Single Ladies” at number 2, while T.I.’s “Wathever You Like” at number 4 and “Live Your Life” at number one.
Then, Beyonce tied with Rihanna by scoring her fifth number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Single Ladies”. On December 21, Alexandra Burke hit the top position in the UK Singles Chart with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah“. Jeff Buckley’s cover came second. On December 22, Live Nation announced that Madonna’s Sticky&Sweet Tour brought US$280 millions in ticket sales and gathered 2,350,282 fans in 58 shows during the tour across Europe and the Americas.

More about the music events of 2008 here.