An apology...and my predictions for Isle of Wight Festival 2018

I'd like to apologise unreservedly for any distress caused by my appalling predictions for Isle of Wight Festival 2017. 

Today's announcement of Run DMC and DJ David Guetta as Friday headliners was nowhere on my radar...and nor was Arcade Fire (Saturday)...or Rod Stewart (Sunday). Hmmm.

In 2014 and 2015 I did OK and predicted a couple of headliners. In 2016 I did pretty badly and in 2017 I was about as accurate as those pollsters who confidently predicted Vote Remain and Hillary Clinton would be victorious.

So, let's just assume that for 2018 my usual techniques of listening to interviews and looking at tour dates won't work.

I'm going to try three new techniques instead, right here, right now and give my predictions for 2018.

Prediction technique 1: The CD grab

OK, first up is a simple technique you can try at home if you are over the age of 23 and still own physical copies of music. As you might imagine, it involves grabbing three CDs with your eyes closed. 

Take care not to knock over your wobbly CD stand with your vision impaired thrusting motion. Also be wary of dust.

Right, I can exclusively reveal that the headliners for Isle of Wight Festival 2018 will be:

• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (Friday)
• Smashing Pumpkins (Saturday)
• Nat King Cole (Sunday)

As you can see, this technique is a good'n with Nat King Cole fitting nicely into the 'heritage' slot filled in recent years by The Who and Neil Young. Smashing Pumpkins would fit nicely, seeing as Pearl Jam headlined not so long ago. Not quite sure how BRMB would go down, but at least they are still performing.

There's a slight issue that Nat King Cole has been dead since 1965, but Queen managed to headline successfully in 2016.

Prediction technique 2: The keyboard whack

The second technique is fairly self explanatory - a good old fashioned whack to the keyboard on Spotify. 

The first whack produced "sdagrSG", but we'll exclude that one. From the whacks which somehow actually produced an artist, I can confidently predict the headliners at Isle of Wight Festival 2018 will be:

• Adham Shaikh (Friday - 'a world groove blend of fusion, dub, world beat, tech house, ambient, and jazz')
• Mumford and Sons (Saturday)
• Dawid Podsiadlo (Sunday - a winner on the Polish version of X Factor)

Well how about that? Saturday's headliner seems like a solid prediction which would fit in nicely. Friday's headliner might not be a household name but it fits nicely with the opening night having a dance vibe. Sunday's headliner - er, well, something to attract a new audience perhaps?

Prediction technique 3: The up and coming names

My final technique may actually have some chance of being right - picking three names at random from the BBC's sound of 2017 longlist.

So, the headliners in 2018 will be:

• The Amazons (Friday)
• Stefflon Don (Saturday)
• Jorja Smith (Sunday)

You may mock me now, but I'll be the one laughing when everyone is singing along to Stefflon Don on Saturday night in June 2018. You just wait...