Heartland

Former Banshees frontman Siouxsie will return to the concert stage this summer after a five-year absence to perform at the Yoko Ono-curated Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank Centre, an event that also will feature sets by Patti Smith, Iggy & The Stooges, Boy George, and both Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore — plus a live performance of Double Fantasy.

The festival, which marks Meltdown’s 20th anniversary, runs from June 14 to June 23. Siouxsie is slated to perform June 15 at the 2,500-seat Royal Festival Hall. Tickets go on sale to Southbank Centre members April 9. A day later, “a very limited number of Siouxsie tickets across all ticket prices� will be available to members of Siouxsie’s mailing list. The general on-sale follows on April 11.

Also included on this year’s lineup: Plastic Ono Band, Deerhoof, Cibo Matto, Immortal Technique, Marianne Faithfull and Bill Frisell, and more (see full details below).

The concert will be Siouxsie’s first since she toured throughout much of 2008 in support of her solo debut MantaRay. The intervening years, however, have been fairly quiet on the Banshees’ front, with Universal Music pulling the plug on the band’s reissue campaign mid-stream. Since then, ex-bassist Steven Severin has mentioned the possibility of a 20-disc box set that has yet to see the light of day.

As for Meltdown, it’s another coup for the festival following last year’s Antony-curated installment, which boasted the first full performances from Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser in 14 years.