5 bands you must see this summer

Still at the planning stage for the festival season? Make sure you find time for these five eardrum-pleasers...

Janelle Monae
Glastonbury Festival, 24th-26th June
Wireless Festival, 1st July
The Big Chill, 4th August
Underage Festival, 5th August
Far more than just another R&B singer, Monae was responsible for one of 2010’s best records. The ArchAndroid – a concept album inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis – snagged her a Grammy nomination and you’ll have several chances to hear the likes of Tightrope played live over the summer.

Odd Future
London - Electric Ballroom, 5th/6th July
T in the Park Festival, 8th July
The LA hip hop collective, led by Tyler, The Creator, make Eminem look as wholesome as The Carpenters. Expect stage invasions, jumping off amplifier stacks and some naughty words when they hit London and then Scotland in July.

Death From Above 1979
Leeds Festival 26th August
Reading Festival 28th August
The freshly-reformed dance-punk noise-rock duo are heading this way on their reunion tour. One of the few bands that can rock without a guitar anywhere in sight – and we always appreciate a singing drummer (via Phil Collins).

Kurt Vile
End of the Road Festival, 2nd-4th September
The luxuriantly-coiffed Philadelphian brings his brand of guitar-driven Amerirock to the southwest towards the end of the summer. Imagine a scuzzier early period Springsteen and you’re on the right track.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/newave/

tUnE-yArDs
London - Scala, 8th June
Manchester - Deaf Institute, 13th June
Aberdeen - Tunnels, 14th June
Glasgow - Captain’s Rest, 15th June
Leeds - Brudenell Social Club, 19th June
Bristol - Fleece, 20th June
Brighton - Green Door Store, 21st June
Her grasp of the proper use of upper and lower case letters may be a bit off, but Merrill Garbus knows how to make mind-bending but poppily catchy experimental music. Combining afro-beat, folk and a melange of other genres using live-looped drums and vocals and a bloody ukelele, tUnE-yArDs are occupying a similar space to Bjork during the mid-1990s.