The Verve's Richard Ashcroft has admitted that festival line-ups are currently too preoccupied with nostalgic acts and they are taking away the limelight from new bands who need the exposure.

During an interview with Lauren Laverne for BBC 6Music, the musician denied that his band will be performing together for any of the upcoming live summer events despite persistent rumours and explained that the attention needs to be turned on to fresh bands instead of denied in favour of putting on world-renowned acts:

"It's not happening. You have to be real in life and I'm proud that we went in and recorded new material. The whole nostalgia thing is getting suffocating and it's difficult for younger acts, especially at festivals."

Ashcroft added: "If you look at some of the line-ups, I'm not ageist by any means, but it's dominated by nostalgia. We need the youth to create their own version of what may potentially become nostalgic but if they haven't got a place to do that because they're dominated by these big monster dinosaur acts, mopping up all the money."