Australia's biggest touring music festival, Big Day Out, will go ahead in 2006 despite initial concerns that a failure to find a home for the Melbourne dates would jeopardise the whole thing.
The Royal Melbourne Showgrounds, which normally hosts the Melbourne Big Day Out dates, is currently undergoing redevelopment - and other venues capable of holding up to 40,000 people will all be under preparation for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, being held in the city in March. However, Melbourne City Council has now given the OK for the event to be held in the city's Princes Park, so it is all systems go.
An initial line up for the late January festival is now expected on 5 Oct. Organisers have confirmed that Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were expected to headline, have pulled out because of delays in the release of their next album, which the performances would have helped promote. Rumours that the replacement headliners would be Pixies have also been called into doubt after Frank Black told Australia's Rave magazine: "It's not that I'm against Big Day Out, but as the Pixies have never played Australia I thought it would be cooler to do our own tour and not play in a great big field but in a room or a club or something where we are in people's faces. You know, 'This is the Pixies and we are here at last'."