2012 has been an interesting year for international tours around Australia, with more than a handful of eagerly anticipated acts (read George Michael - admit it, you were gutted too), unfortunately cancelling their tours and a few festival dramas thrown into the mix. Thankfully, those that did make it to our shores more than made up for the cancellations. Without further ado, here are the top twelve international tours of 2012 as voted by the AU Review contributors.

Sigur Rós. Beck. Ben Folds. Cake. Silversun Pickups. And they were just my picks! With a line up like this, how could anyone even consider missing the 2012 Harvest Festival? The Brisbane leg of the tour was held at the Botanic Gardens, which provided to perfect backdrop for the festival. But due to the severe storms the day before it was well after the advertised time of 11am when the gates finally opened.

Harvest Festival wound up for the year in Brisbane's Botanic Gardens. Heath Carney braved the rain, hail, lightning and sunshine to capture it for us. Pictured: The Dandy Warhols.

Harvest Festival may only be in its second year, but it has well and truly established itself as a world class event. Last year we tentatively made our way to the brand new festival at Parramatta Park, lured in by its unbelievably dreamy line up which included the likes of Portishead, The Flaming Lips and The National. The live music was extraordinary, the grounds spacious and the crowds anything but obnoxious. This year, Harvest once again delivered.

Pictured: Sigur Ros.

In this issue: Sarah Blasko adds second Sydney show and announces special guest, The Good Ship changes Brisbane venue and announces festival dates, Dark Funeral announces support acts for their tour and much more!

Sarah Blasko adds second Sydney Opera House gig & announces special guest!

The folk behind the Harvest Festival have some great news to unveil this afternoon. Not only have they scheduled a SECOND Melbourne show as a result of the initial Melbourne leg of the festival selling out, but the organisers have today released the next round of artists due to appear on their stages at the end of the year!

Check out the list of bands set to join the likes of Beck, Sigur Ros and Santigold below.

We named Harvest Festival our favourite festival of 2011, and after a slight bit of worry that the Brisbane leg could be culled due to council concerns...well, to say we were thankful to hear that it would be back in all cities in 2012!

The lineup was announced on Triple J, and boy howdy...well, let's just get to it. It's out of this damn world.