This year’s Split Festival line-up, which will take place across September 17th and 18th at Ashbrooke Sports Club in Sunderland.

Curated by The Futureheads, with guitarist Ross Millard at the helm as Split’s Music Programmer, the festival is now in its third year and promises to be bigger and better than ever before. The line-up that boasts some of the UK's best loved bands alongside the North East’s local talent and emerging international artists.

Artists confirmed so far for Split Festival 2011 include:

SATURDAY 17TH SEPTEMBER
The Drums
Dutch Uncles
B>E>A>K>
We Beat the System

SUNDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER
The Charlatans
Frankie & The Heartstrings
Ganglians
Hyde & Beast
Leatherface
Dauntless Elite

Plus many more are to be announced over the coming weeks!

Additional fringe tents hosting comedians and acoustic artistswill also be put in place, as well as the gourmet tent hosted by BBC Masterchef finalist Stacey Stewart providing Split’s festival food.

“We’re really looking forward to playing at Split Festival and I think that it will be one of the last festivals we’re doing for some time because after that we’ll be in the studio. We’ve got Frankie and the Heartstrings on before us and I’ve heard a lot of good things about them and I think we’ll be up early doors anyway for Split, so I’ll go and have a wander round and check out the up and coming acts, as I know there will be some good ones playing.”Martin Blunt, The Charlatans

“We’re incredibly excited about The Drums. It’s pretty exclusive and for Split and Sunderland to boast that is pretty amazing. It was really important that on the Saturday night we’ve got a new band that has an immense level of excitement around them and they are the band that is summing up the modern element of Split Festival this year, with the other side of the coin being Sunday night’s headliners, The Charlatans, who have innumerable anthems.

"At the end of the Sunday when everyone is getting a little bit emotional and a little bit carried away with themselves, on come the Charlatans to play you through a greatest hits set and it couldn’t really be better. That’s something which is really important about Split, we got someone valid to close the festival on Sunday night, it’s Glastonbury-esque, they have these great legacy performers who close Glasto and now we’ve got one of our own at Split.”
Ross Millard, Split Festival Music Programmer & The Futureheads’ guitarist

“The festival has become an aspiration for many bands of all ages from the Sunderland area. Split has increased the quality and amount of musicians in the city, perhaps implementing a healthy competition as the festival is a real achievable target for the region’s bands as Split is not scared to take a chance on the local bands on offer them the same stage as the nation’s favourites, like they did to us.”Frankie Francis, Frankie & The Heartstrings