Cue Waterloo sunsets as Ray Davies stages festival

Former kinks frontman Ray Davies has been appointed artistic director of next year's Meltdown Festival, at London's Southbank Centre, just along the Thames from Waterloo Station, where Terry met Julie every Friday night in one of his most enduring songs.

Davies follows in the footsteps of David Bowie, Jarvis Cocker, Nick Cave, Morrissey and Patti Smith, and said he was planning a "creative celebration through the decades". The event, which started in 1993, will run from Friday 10 to Sunday 19 June, and will include concerts, DJ sets, talks, films and visual arts. Davies, 66, added that Meltdown 2011 would be "a bridge between the past, present and future".

The line-up will be announced next year, but Davies comes off the back of a succession of collaborations for his latest album, See My Friends, a series of Kinks songs performed with artists including Mumford & Sons, Billy Corgan, Bruce Springsteen and Metallica. Davies has written some of the best-known songs in pop, including "You Really Got Me" and "Dedicated Follower of Fashion".

Next year will be the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain on London's South Bank. "I went with my dad," Davies said. "It was the closest we ever got to Disneyland in London."