NEWS DIGEST: Monday, June 30

11:51 AM GMT 30/06/2008

The Last Shadow Puppets will hit the road in August.

Alex Turner and Miles Kane will perform a series of dates throughout the UK and Europe with James Ford (drums), John Ashton (keyboards) and Stephen Fretwell (bass) in tow. A 16-piece orchestra will join them for the ride.

The full dates look like this:

August 19 – Portsmouth, Guildhall
August 20 – Oxford, New Theatre
August 22 – Leeds Festival
August 24 – Reading Festival
August 26 – Paris, Olympia
October 15 – Stockholm - Circus
October 16 – Copenhagen – Vega Main Hall
October 17 – Berlin – Tempodrome
October 19 – Brussels – Cirque Royale
October 20 – Amsterdam – Paradiso
October 22 – Glasgow – Academy
October 23 – Sheffield – City Hall
October 26 – London – Hammersmith Apollo
October 30 - Grand Ballroom, New York
November 3 - Mayan Theatre, Los Angeles

Tickets go onsale on July 5 at 9:30am.

A new single, Standing Next To Me, is set for release next Monday (July 7).

Lucky Glastonbury-goers. Mud squelching underfoot as the rain poured down, a significant theft increase and a fire near the site causing the closure of the A37 must all have contributed to a fantastic start to the festival. Worthy Farm was never going to disappoint, however, and the festival produced a plethora of crowd-pleasers and even some sunshine too.

The headliners came good. "Surprise!" exclaimed Franz Ferdinand’s front man Kapranos as he took the stage. The band, last-minute replacements for Babyshambles, who had cancelled on Friday, entertained the punters with a taste of what to expect from their forthcoming third album. New tracks Ulysses, Turn It On, Kathryn Kiss Me and What She Came For went down well.

New York rapper Jay-Z didn’t receive the anticipated cold reception. Noel Gallagher had thrown down the gauntlet, labeling the hip-hop headlining as "wrong"

"If it ain't broke don't fix it. If you start to break it then people aren't going to go. I'm sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance. Glastonbury has a tradition of guitar music and even when they throw the odd curve ball in on a Sunday night you go 'Kylie Minogue?' I don't know about it. But I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong."

After projecting Gallagher’s comments on a big screen and mockingly miming along to Wonderwall before an excited crowd, Jay-Z may have got the upper hand on this spat.

Other highlights included a raunchy Goldfrapp set, sing-a-longs from Neil Diamond and Leonard Cohen and Amy Winehouse punching a member of the crowd whilst singing Rehab.

Head to www.theverve.tv if you fancy a free download. After closing the festival, The Verve have made one of their new tracks, Mover, available for your aural pleasure.

Finally, outside the Glasto news bubble, Devo are suing McDonald’s over their happy meal toy New Wave Nigel. The post-punk band were famous for their orange boiler suits and plastic, terraced hats they liked to call Energy Domes. Nigel too sports similar headgear and outfit. The plastic figurine is part of a line of pop music-inspired toys. Ronald McDonald is all set for round two of the series. Brace yourself for Human League Lenny, Bananarama Barbara and Kraftwerk Karl.

STAY TUNED TO MOJO4MUSIC FOR MORE FROM THE GLASTONBURY FRONTLINE!

Posted by Ross_Bennett at 11:51 AM GMT 30/06/2008