What started as a far from classic week of new tickets is ending with an explosive rock-flavoured bang, aided and abetted by one or two huge names throwing their studded leather hats into the ring. All tickets on sale Friday at 9AM unless otherwise specified. So with a long hard blast of the Allgigs vuvuzela, we're off!

Tickets go on sale Friday at 9AM unless otherwise specified. All prices + booking fees. For ticket availability, click on the images, below, or scroll down for the full event listing.

Ozzfest 2010

The behemoth of rock and bat-cuisine returns with his celebrated and revered festival, Ozzfest. The UK finally sees the Osbourne-meister back in Blighty with ONE date at the O2 Arena on 18th September. With Korn and Murderdolls in support and with several 'horror-circus' attractions in place around the O2 itself, this will be a day to remember, before the whole darned thing heads off back to the States. His warm-ups have sold-out, this will too so be ready at 9am. Tickets are £40.

30 Seconds to Mars were last weekend rocking an adoring Download crowd at Donnington, and last toured the UK all of four months ago. Jared and the boys seem to like us, blessing the UK with another arena tour for November and December, ably assisted by Enter Shikari, who'll provide the support. The tour takes in Brighton, London, Birmingham, Aberdeen and Manchester (no Ireland date this time), with tickets costing £22 for all but the London O2 Arena date, which will cost £23.50.

Them Crooked Vultures

The supergroup to rival all supergroups has announced a special one-off gig at the Brixton Academy in July. Monday 5th sees Grohl, Homme and Jones attempt to raise money for their close friend Brian O'Connor, bassist with the band Eagles Of Death Metal, recently diagnosed with cancer and devoid of any insurance policy to pay for treatment. Tickets are £32.50 and demand will be high - have patience and keep trying. Oh and a message to greedy touts looking to exploit this on eBay: let's leave this one eh? Buy it, turn up, rock out and raise funds.

Linkin Park

Continuing with metal and rock, Chester Bennington and co are back for a trio of tremendous dates in November. With their 4th album fast-approaching and a devoted fan-base, Linkin Park have plenty to offer with three massive albums under their belt, plus Bennington's solo Dead By Sunrise project out of his system. Tickets are £44.50. LP's Mike Shinoda posted a cryptic message on his website this week that when opened, a load of white dots flashed about and not very much happened. This seemed to incite almost hysterics amongst fans on the website forum ranging from "Um", via "Uh" to "Awesome". I suspect their live shows in Manchester (4th Nov), Birmingham (9th) and London (10th) might be more exciting.

Pendulum

The Reading and Leeds Festivals are bulked out with some of the biggest names in rock and roll, none more so than Australia's rock n bass sextet, Pendulum. Probably likely to perform better than the Socceroos, the boys showed their skills at the Radio 1 Big Weekend recently, as well as Wembley Arena, attracting a crowd of punters from France, Slovakia and all over the country. Bearing that in mind, their festival warm-up date in Cambridge on 26th August looks like selling out within the time it takes to say, £22.50. Which happens to be the price to get in, by the way. NB - Tickets go on sale at 10am.

The Drums

Not quite chasing the stadiums but still fast being elevated to 'must-see' status is The Drums. Their recent debut album release soared into the Top 20 without a huge amount of radio-play, it has to be said, so fair-play. 80s retro can either go horribly wrong or perfectly right and at least The Drums have cited some decent bands as influences. The album "The Drums" lives up to the hype and ticket sales for their winter tour (from 24th Nov to 6th Dec) might do as well - get in quick for 9am because tickets are not expensive, just £11.50 approx.

Snoop Dogg

2010 could be the 'Year of the Dogg' with the amount of high-profile gigs he has planned. Allegedly unwanted in the UK from as far back as 2007, he appears to have won his battle to return to British soil by announcing a two more British concerts in Glasgow and London. Already playing Wireless on the 3rd July and two Irish dates, he will bring a piece of "Doggyworld" to Glasgow (£33.50) on the 4th and Shepherd's Bush (£45) on the 9th.

Sting

"Symphonicity" might just get an entry into the Oxford Dictionary by the time Sting has finished using it for his upcoming October tour. Two more dates will become available on Friday starting with Manchester (4th) and Edinburgh (9th). As with his other dates at the Royal Albert Hall, Gateshead and Dublin, tickets are not cheap (£58.75 upwards), but this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see one of Britain's most-gifted songwriters perform with a full concert orchestra.

Frank Turner

Yeah, we like Frank, there's something straightforward and refreshing about his live performances, plus his recent "Poetry Of The Deed" album was a slow-burning little grower of angsty-acoustic strum-rockers that deserved a wider audience. He might just get that audience at the Reading and Leeds Festival (and the sold-out 2000 Trees shindig as well) which will surely put emphasis on his December shows, up for grabs on Friday. Some of the dates are on sale now but Preston (3rd), Southampton (7th) and Leicester (10th) go on sale tomorrow at 9am. He's bound to have some new songs to peddle as well, the cheeky blighter.

Carl Barât

After treading the boards in Hammersmith's Riverside with Sadie Frost, the Libertines and Dirty Pretty Things writer and musician is heading out for a few post-festival come-down solo gigs in October. The Libertines are playing Leeds and Reading as a full group once again, but Barât obviously has some songs to tease you with and will play Wolverhampton (25th), Bristol (26th) and London's Scala (27th). In addition, the Cambridge gig on the 16th is on sale priced at £12.50 plus fees.

Happy Clicking