Christine and the Queens’ Meltdown

Everything Christine and the Queens touches shines with originality, complexity and heartfelt emotion – so, it follows, does his Meltdown line-up. This June, the French pop phenomenon takes the helm for our artist-curated festival, picking, in his words, only artists ‘that have some gut-wrenching quality.’

As the brainchild of its curator’s unique vision, this Meltdown is bursting with celebrations of selfhood, identity and creativity – at gigs in our halls, at club nights in our concrete club space, and outside on our Riverside Stage.

Christine and the Queens sells it better than we ever could: ‘Ten nights that are ours. Southbank Centre filled with beloved artists … Art to save the city! To free its contours and enliven the soul – it’s why we do what we do. I can’t effing wait.’

Music en masse

Ten days is enough time for masses of live music from across a wide and beautiful spectrum. Take one of the 2,700 places in our Royal Festival Hall for Afropop and gqom from Yemi Alade and Moonchild Sanelly, art rock from Django Django or Warpaint, forwardthinking London jazz from KOKOROKO, emotion and Afrobeat with Oxlade, and a monumental collaboration between Sigur Rós and London Contemporary Orchestra.

Of the multitude of other gigs spanning our indoor stages, let’s pick just a few: there’s dopamine-dosed synth-pop from Let’s Eat Grandma, a live show from Drive-soundtrack composer Johnny Jewel, a double-header from girli and the glitter-masked Lynks, and Petite Noir’s political brand of pop. Seriously, you just need to check the line-up.

Under open sky

On festival weekends, even our very considerable walls can’t keep the party indoors, and so it bursts outdoors to take over our Riverside Stage, where there’s always a crowd dancing and strutting their stuff. And did we mention it’s free?

This year you and the crowd can go wild with queer pan-Asian cabaret group The Bitten Peach, a drag and DJ combo from Pecs and Sisu, Rain Crew’s summer dance-off, and DJs and live music from Faggamuffin Bloc Party, Loud LDN and We Are Dopamine. Get yourself down here for some of the most fun you can have for free in the capital.

Beyond music

If you’ve ever seen a Christine and the Queens video or performance, you’ll know that music isn’t the be all and end all – and neither is it here. There’s new work by choreographer Taos Bertrand, an afternoon of brilliant chaos from the Ru Paul’s Drag Race contestant Katya Zamolodchikova, and Bodies Tilted from BitterSuite, an intimate blind-folded journey through music using movement, touch and even scent.

The club is calling

To cap it all off, because most of the truly great nights end at the club, Christine and the Queens has arranged two nights of dancefloor bliss. Pxssy Palace combines the scenes of Paris and London in a cross-channel line-up that features MikeQ, TAAHLIAH, Amor Satyr and Sucré Saleté, while south-London pop-up queer nightclub The Chateau presents SE_XCELLENCE.