GIG WISE: Some extra tickets went on sale this morning for the Spice Girls at Croke Park in May.

Talk about a firestarter way to kick off the weekend!

Apart from headliners, Primal Scream, Jake Bugg, Walking On Cars, La Galaxie and Kate Nash here’s who not to miss:

With only days to go, INDIE18 is shaping up for its biggest festival to date as the three-day event at Deer Farm, Mitchelstown, Co Cork gets ready to open its gates.

Headline acts Jack L, Hudson Taylor, Celine Byrne, and Paul Brady will showcase their talents this summer in a spectacular outdoor theatre where an exhausted limestone quarry was once used as a public dump.

There's also one more exciting announcement coming soon!

The official launch of Dublin's New Year's festival is taking place this evening, with a number of events happening across the weekend.

Ellie O’Byrne suggests some interesting ways to spend January 1, to get 2018 off to a great start

All parties involved with the 2FM Xmas Ball are providing their services free of charge on the night including artists, organisers and 3Arena.

Kodaline will be the headline act for the New Year's Festival in Dublin.

A bit different to last week's show.

Birdy and Elbow are among twenty new acts added to the line-up for this years highly anticipated Electric Picnic.

Catch all you need-to-know entertainment news with Eoghan O’Sullivan.

We are pretty sure there is nothing better than an Irish pub at Christmas.

A round up of this weeks entertainment news

Frances Fitzgerald confirms independent inquiry into Siteserv deal; A 102-year-old woman sees her younger self dancing on film for the first time ever; and top editors reveal the ‘write’ way to get published. These are some of the latest and most read news on irishexaminer.com this lunchtime.

MUSIC NEWS: Reginald D Hunter’s series, Songs of the South, is essential viewing for music fans tomorrow night (BBC Two, 9pm), and this second episode is all the more attractive because it is followed by a new documentary on James Brown. 

Their busking days stood Hudson Taylor in good stead for their highly anticipated debut album, writes Ed Power

Get your weekend sorted with everything that’s happening in thw world of entertainment

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MUSIC NEWS:  Fair play to the Rubberbandits.

Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh was born in Boston but raised in Shrule, Co Mayo.

MUSIC NEWS:

LIKE any sport that is characterised by endurance this year’s Indiependence Music & Arts Festival in Mitchelstown, Co Cork, seemed to communicate the value of peaking at the right moment.

With dusk falling on the Saturday evening of the Indiependence Music & Arts Festival, a gravel- voiced female festival-goer is displaying early symptoms of the festival equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder: "Why is my voice like this?"

Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip

Increasing hopes of sunshine enhance a hectic June bank holiday weekend in the south-west. Forecasters are pointing to ‘reasonably fine weather’ which should attract large crowds to a plethora of festivals, exhibitions and other exciting events through Cork and Kerry as well as the Mid-West.

Indiependence Music & Arts Festival has today announced a second batch of acts to play this year's event.

Organisers have revealed the Main Stage times for this weekend's Electric Picnic festival.

Electric Picnic organisers have today revealed which bands would be playing on each day of the festival.

Bressie and the Happy Mondays have been announced to play at Leopardstown in the summer series of Bulmers Live evenings.

The first round of acts have this evening been announced for the INDIEPENDENCE Music & Arts Festival.