25 years! A quarter century of Exile On Mainstream. It feels like it was just yesterday when we celebrated our 20th birthday? And even that already felt quite surreal to me. At the beginning, there was just the idea of releasing a few 7-inch singles for befriended bands... at a time when vinyl was anything but hip. As we all know, things turned out differently. 25 years and 108 releases later, we're still here, or as a good friend once put it: You don't have to be the best, you just have to survive. Well, we did. None of this would have been possible without the simply fantastic artists with whom we've had the privilege to work over the years. Exile On Mainstream has become everything I ever dreamed of - a big family driven by a strong D.I.Y. ethic that extends from the label itself, through the artists, right to you, our dear fans: You've helped and supported us! I think a bit of self-praise is appropriate here. So, let's celebrate. In a big way. On the 8th and 9th of May, we'll meet in Berlin at the Neue Zukunft, and on the 10th and 11th of May in Leipzig, the city where it all began for us. Both the Neue Zukunft and the UT Connewitz are inseparably connected to the history of Exile On Mainstream, supporting us far beyond the ordinary. They are family and living room all in one. So, the question of where to celebrate never even arose for a minute.

And here it is, the complete line-up and all the information. We present six acts that will perform in both cities, as well as twelve more, with six of them exclusively performing in Berlin and six exclusively in Leipzig. As it has become a tradition by now, and because we are hopeless romantics, we have three special reunions for the festival only: Ostinato, A Whisper In The Noise, and End Of Level Boss. But that's not all: get ready for some collaborations between the invited bands, which are as much a label tradition as an exciting side program, such as a fire show by the Fireflies and a live drawing session featuring our artists Roland Scriver, Pierre Zoller, Conny Ochs, and Matt Irwin.