Summer festival schedule no secret for Them Crooked Vultures this year

John Paul Jones is taking his group, Them Crooked Vultures, through Europe in coming months.

In addition to previously announced concert appearances -- including a Teenage Cancer Trust benefit in London next month and a trio of U.S. shows in April -- the band's touring schedule now includes five European festivals set to take place in June and July.

Last August, the newly formed Them Crooked Vultures was in stealth mode, popping up by surprise at five festivals in Belgium, the Netherlands, England and France. This year, we know the same amount of scheduled festival appearances well in advance -- and that's not even counting the one U.S. festival date coming up, Coachella in April.

The band is scheduled to perform during the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in Germany, held June 3-6. The poster for both events has a certain Shepard Fairey/Mothership feel to it.

The following weekend, June 11-13, sees the group at the Download Festival, held at Donington Park in England. While the highly anticipated festival lineup was already set to include AC/DC and Them Crooked Vultures, the big news of the past week is the announcement that Aerosmith has been booked, its lineup including singer Steven Tyler supposedly intact.

Keen observers noting the location of the Download Festival may recall it was there that Jimmy Page joined Aerosmith onstage in 1990 (while we're still talking about Page's encores from that busy summer). It was the Monsters of Rock Festival in August 1990, and Aerosmith's set included a guest appearance from Page, properly closing the festivities at Castle Donington with a jam on "Train Kept A-Rollin'."

While there isn't video footage of that (but the audio is available), their rehearsal footage shot at the Marquee Club in advance of another performance that week has made its way to YouTube.

I digress; back to Them Crooked Vultures. They're set to appear at the Hove Festival in Arendal, Norway, on June 30; at the Peace and Love Festival in Borlänge, Sweden, on July 1; and the Roskilde Festival near Roskilde, Denmark, on July 2.

Finally, the episode of the series Austin City Limits featuring a performance from Them Crooked Vultures has aired on most PBS stations, and it is now available for online viewing.