NEWS DIGEST: Thursday, May 8

9:52 AM GMT 08/05/2008

Madonna's Sticky & Sweet world tour will kick off in August with two stadium shows in Cardiff and London. The details look like this:

August 23 - Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
(Ticket Prices: £150, £100, £85, £75, £65, £55)

September 11 - Wembley Stadium, London
(Ticket Prices: £160, £110, £90, £85, £75, £65)

Tickets go on sale at 9am on May 16 and are available from www.livenation.co.uk or via 0844 576 5483 .There will be a 6 ticket per person limit for these shows.

Coldplay's new single, Violet Hill, has been downloaded over two million times since it was made available online last week. The band's new album, Viva La Vida, will be released on June 12 and will be reviewed in the next issue of MOJO.

Billy Idol has announced two UK tour dates in support of his new hits collection Idolize Yourself. He'll play Manchester Apollo on July 30 and London's Brixton Academy on July 31. Tickets go onsale on Friday (May 9) and are available from 0844 576 5483 or to buy online at www.livenation.co.uk. Idolize Yourself is set for release on June 23.

The line-up has been confirmed for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday 46664 concert in Hyde Park on June 27. Queen, Annie Lennox, The Sugababes, Dame Shirley Bassey, Simple Minds, Eddy Grant, Jamelia, and Razorlight They will be joined by a host of African performers including the Soweto Gospel Choir, rapper Emmanuel Jal, South African singers Johnny Clegg and Loyiso, the Aids orphans choir The Children of Agape and the legendary Papa Wemba. You can register for presale tickets by heading HERE. Tickets (£65) go on sale on May 9 at 9am via www.livenation.co.uk

Prince is set to release a photographic book of last year's 21-night stand at London's 02 Arena. The tome will offer a rare look at some behind-the-scenes action, along with detailed overlook at his career. As well as the 124 never-before-seen photos the book will also feature a complimentary CD, Indigo Nights - a compilation of the intimate gigs he played after the main show had ended.

Nine Inch Nails' latest album, The Slip, is available to download for free via www.nin.com, ahead of its release on vinyl and CD in July. The Slip is the first NIN album to be released free of charge as a DRM-free digital download. Frontman Trent Reznor commented that it was thank you to the fans for their support and added “this one’s on me’. It is available as a high-quality MP3 and tech-savvy better-than-CD 24 bit 96k version.

And it looks like Paul McCartney is to follow suit. Macca will be giving away his latest album, Memory Almost Full, with the Mail On Sunday on May 18.

And finally...Happy Birthday Robert Johnson! The original delta-blues man would have been 97 today. Here's the Stones with their version of Love In Vain in 1972.