David Byrne and St Vincent have announced a trio of headline UK shows, set to take place in August. The pair will play London's Roundhouse on August 27, Birmingham Symphony Hall on August 28 and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on August 29. The shows will take place as part of a wider European tour. David Byrne and St Vincent will also join Sigur Ros and Belle And Sebastian in headlining this summer's End Of The Road festival following their stand-alone shows.

Dylan at the Hop Farm Festival, Springsteen and Paul Simon in Hyde Park, the Great Escape Festival in Brighton, as mentioned last week, a ton of great bands at the No Direction Home and End Of The Road festivals, which have line-ups straight out of the pages of Uncut. There’s certainly no shortage of great gigs on the horizon, looming and inviting. There’s one among them, though, that I may actually be looking forward to more than anything else coming up: Dave Alvin at the London Jazz Café on April 20.

End of The Road will also see Alela Diane and Howlin Rain play

The band are set to play only British show at the End Of The Road

While End of the Road has definitely got bigger since last year, the stages are still so close together that you can fall into a band without even realising it. If you were the band in devil outfits playing thrash metal at the Bimble Inn at 1am this morning, our photographer is dying to reach you. One of 10 unsigned(ish) bands to win a slot on The Local stage, Fortuna Pop signings My Sad Captains' almost implausible summeriness was a gift on an afternoon as baking hot as this one. 'Here and Elsewhere' and the title track from June's 'Bad Decisions' EP showed off slacker indie pop sensibilities that singlehandedly steal back the "doo-ron-ron" from McDonalds and herald an inevitable radio takeover in the next year.

We didn't realise quite how popular Robyn Hitchcock, the bard of all things surreal, is. The Big Top Tent at End Of The Road Festival was literally packed this evening. Or could the hordes have been there to see his sidekick, a meek man by the name of John Paul Jones? He's from some band called Led something. Anyway, this dude's hot, you should check him out sometime. Let's hope Robyn keeps him for more than one gig.

With everyone tooled up on cider, rum and whatever else they've got stuffed in their pockets, the mood at End of the Road was little short of ebullient this evening: not that you'd know it from Midlake's set on the Garden stage.

Being a singer-songwriter is a tricky business. Which route do you take? You can always attempt to bludgeon your audience into submission with the sheer power of your one act show, or you can entrance them with the ethereal magic of your fragile performance. So far, we've seen both sides of the singer-songwriter paradox (well, as we like to call it) in just a few hours at End Of The Road Festival, first with Stephanie Dosen's disturbing, delicate folk and then with John Doe's straight-down-the-line country blues.

They join Yo La Tengo and SFA at End Of The Road

The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Michael Kiwanuka, a free CD and more!