Barcelona Concerts

Depeche Mode

20 / 21 November

In August 2007, during promotion for Dave Gahan's second solo album, Hourglass, it was announced that Depeche Mode were heading back in studio in early 2008 to work on their upcoming twelfth studio album. In March 2008, rumours surfaced that Ben Hillier would be the producer of the forthcoming album. In May 2008, the band returned to the studio to work on some songs that Martin Gore had been working on at his home studio in Santa Barbara, California. In August 2008, it was announced that Depeche Mode were splitting from their long-term U.S. label, Warner Music, and will be signed to EMI Music worldwide. At a press conference on 6 October 2008 at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, the band announced plans for its Tour of the Universe, the group's first-ever European stadium tour.

Muse

27 November
The Resistance was released on 11 September in Italy, Germany and Australia and the Benelux, 14 September in the UK, and 15 September in the U.S. and Canada. It is the first Muse album to have been produced by the band itself. The album was mixed by Mark Stent. On its release, it topped the album charts in 19 countries and reached number 3 on the American album chart. It also beat its predecessor, Black Holes and Revelations, in relative album sales in its debut week in the UK with approximately 148,000 copies sold. The first single "Uprising" was released 7 days earlier. On 2 June 2009, the band announced through e-mails and their website that they would begin a tour of Europe and the UK.

The Prodigy

3 December
Invaders Must Die was released in Europe on February 23, 2009 charting at number one with week one sales of over 97,000. To coincide with the release of the album, the band embarked on an arena tour.

Editors

Lead singer Smith revealed that the band will explore a new direction on their next album, pursuing a new, rawer sound. Before January 2009, Editors had written around eighteen new songs for the new album and they have been described as some of the most synthetic, raw and anthemic songs they have written to date. In October the band went to the studio to record some demos. The band spent the first week of April recording the album and on 8 April, they released a short video with information about the recording process. It announced on that Mark 'Flood' Ellis would be the producer for the album. Earlier on in the year, the sound of the album was said to have a very electric feel with the band often using the Terminator theme song as a reference.

Arctic Monkeys

6 February
Arctic Monkeys revealed that the band had listened to Jimi Hendrix and Cream while writing the new album. It was revealed via a bulletin on the band's MySpace page that the title of the album will be Humbug. As announced on the Arctic Monkeys website the first single will be "Crying Lightning".