Chatterbox: Metallica possible BDO headliners

Rumours are flying that veteran metal band Metallica will headline next year's Big Day Out. But organisers are keeping quiet about the line-up until October.

The band have been signed as the main act at Big Day Out festivals throughout Australia - part of the group's international comeback on the back of new album St Anger, so there's a good chance they will follow suit across the ditch.

Australian Big Day Out promoters Ken West and Vivian Lees flew to the Roskilde festival in Denmark last week to see Metallica perform in front of 90,000, and ensure fans could be controlled before signing them. West told the Sydney Morning Herald: "Roskilde was our last window to see what the momentum of the crowd was like, how much tonnage was involved. And it was good."

Crowd control has become the festival's central safety issue, after a 15-year-old girl suffered fatal injuries during Limp Bizkit's set at the Sydney Big Day Out festival two years ago.

BDO's New Zealand promoter won't confirm anything about the band playing the festival, which is likely to be on Friday, January 16, saying a full announcement will be made in October.

Also possibly coming this summer are shows at Western Springs by the reformed Fleetwood Mac and David Bowie.

SAY IT ISN'T SO: Britney Spears has admitted she had sex with former boyfriend Justin Timberlake despite once vowing to remain a virgin until she wed. Spears also said she is hunting far afield for a new beau - especially in Australia and Spain where men are less "fuddy duddy".

"The most painful thing I have ever experienced was that break-up," Spears told W magazine. "We were together so long and I had this vision. You think you're going to spend the rest of your life together. Where I come from, the woman is the homemaker, and that's how I was brought up - you cook for your kids."

The 21-year-old Spears revealed that she had sex with the 'N Sync boy-band singer because she believed they would marry some day. "I've only slept with one person my whole life," she said. "It was two years into my relationship with Justin, and I thought he was the one. But I was wrong."

As for reports linking Spears to actor Colin Farrell, she said: "Yes I kissed him. Of course I did! He's the cutest, hottest thing in the world - wooh! He's such a bad boy. But it was nothing serious."

The kiss left her with a "craving" for more of the same. "I haven't had a boy in a really long time ... just a kiss, man. Just a kiss would be nice."

COLD FRONT: Auckland band betchadupa are the support for Coldplay's sold-out Auckland show on July 24 and the band will also open for the English group in Australia, playing sizeable venues such as Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena and Sydney's Hodern Pavilion, in between playing pub gigs.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS: "Like an albino dwarf ostrich hatching from its shell, this shy creaking grin is a spectacle so sweet, rare and ever so slightly disturbing that it can only ever be a very good thing." - The Independent's Alexia Loundras on seeing Radiohead's Thom Yorke smile when the crowd sang along to Karma Police at the Glastonbury festival.