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Reading Main Stage in 2007 (Top) Leeds Main Stage in 2006 (Bottom) |
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| Location(s) |
England |
|---|---|
| Years active | 1961–present |
| Date(s) | August bank holiday |
| Genre | Rock, indie rock, alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock |
| Website | www.readingfestival.com www.leedsfestival.com |
The Reading and Leeds Festivals are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. The events take place simultaneously on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend, sharing the same bill. The Reading Festival is held at Little John's Farm on Richfield Avenue in central Reading, near the Caversham Bridge. The Leeds event is held in Bramham Park, near Wetherby, the grounds of an historic house. Campsites are available at both sites and weekend tickets include camping. Day tickets are also sold.
The Reading Festival, the original and senior leg of the two, is the world's oldest popular music festival still in existence. It has had various musical phases over the years, as detailed below. In the twin-site era, rock, alternative, indie, punk and metal have tended to dominate.
The festivals are run by Festival Republic, which was divested from Mean Fiddler Music Group.[1] For promotional purposes during 1998-2007 they were known as the Carling Weekend: Reading and the Carling Weekend: Leeds. Unsurprisingly, these titles were seldom used when not required, although NME did so as part of its involvement. In November 2007, the organisers welcomed "Reading Festival reclaiming its prestigious name" when the sponsored title was abolished after 9 years.[2] In 2011, the capacity of the Reading site was 87,000[3] and the Leeds site was 75,000.[4] This was an increase of several thousand on previous years.[5]
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The festival typically has the following stages:[6]
The Reading Festival originates from the National Jazz Festival, which was conceived by Harold Pendleton (founder of the Marquee Club in London) and was first held at Richmond Athletic Ground in 1961. This festival, in turn, took inspiration from events held in America. Throughout its first decade the festival changed names and moved around sites several times, being held at Windsor Racecourse, Kempton Park and Plumpton, before reaching its permanent home at Reading in 1971.[9]
The line-up settled into a pattern of progressive rock, blues and heavy metal during the 1970s.[10] It did dabble with punk rock in 1978 when The Jam, Sham 69 and Penetration played.[11] The festival attempted to provide both traditional rock acts and new punk bands, leading to clashes between the two sets of fans. Although The Ramones played the following year, the festival gradually became known for focusing on heavy metal and rock acts.[12]
During this decade, the festival followed a similar format to that established in the late 1970s, with large crowds flocking to see the era's leading rock and heavy metal acts perform on the last two days, with a more varied lineup including punk and new wave bands on the opening day.
In 1984 and 1985, the Conservative Party-led local council effectively banned the festival by reclaiming the festival site for 'development' and refusing to grant licences for any alternative sites in the Reading area. In 1984, many acts were already booked to appear, tickets were on sale with Marillion (2nd on the bill on Saturday night the previous year) due to be one of this year's headliners. The promoters tried in vain to salvage what they could but a proposed move to Lilford Hall in Northamptonshire failed (the proposed bill was published in Soundcheck free music paper issue 12 as: Friday 24th August - Hawkwind, Boomtown Rats, Snowy White, The Playn Jayn, Dumpy's Rusty Nuts, Wildfire, Chelsea Eloy, Tracy Lamb, New Torpedoes (sic); Saturday 25th - Jethro Tull, Hanoi Rocks, Steve Hackett, Club Karlsson, Nazareth, Twelfth Night, Thor, Silent Running, New Model Army, IQ, The Roaring Boys, She; Sunday 26th - Marillion, Grand Slam, The Bluebells, Helix, Clannad, The Opposition, The Enid, Young Blood, Scorched Earth, Terraplane). The resulting gap in the British festival calendar kick-started the rise of the minor CND benefit event at Glastonbury from obscure beginnings as a "hippie" festival in the 1970s.
After Labour regained control of the council in 1986, permission was given for fields adjacent to the original festival site to be used, with a line-up put together at just three months' notice.[13]
The following year saw a record attendance at what was considered by some to be the last of the "classic" rock years of the festival, with headlining acts such as The Mission, Alice Cooper and Status Quo.
1988 saw a disastrous attempt to take the festival in a mainstream commercial pop direction,[14] dominated by the likes of Starship, Squeeze, Bonnie Tyler and Meat Loaf (who was "bottled" off stage), and the ensuing recriminations eventually saw the ousting of original festival promoter Harold Pendleton by the Mean Fiddler Music Group organisation.[15]
Pendleton initially tried to continue at a new site near Newbury using the name "Redding Festival" but this failed to take off. Meanwhile, the official Reading Festival, now under Mean Fiddler guidance, continued at the Thames-side site in Reading, pursuing an almost completely Goth and indie music policy that alienated much of the traditional fan base and saw attendances continue to fall.
The future of the festival looked in doubt at this point. However, things were to improve from 1992 onwards as the festival broadened its musical policy and attendances gradually increased.
In 1991, Nirvana played the first of their two appearances at Reading, midway down the bill. This is also the year the first britpop bands such as Suede and Blur started to show themselves on the festival circuit.
1992 was one of the most famous in the festival's history. Nirvana played what was to become their last UK concert, and one of their most famous. Their 1992 live performance was later released as a live album/DVD Live at Reading in November 2009. The band's frontman, Kurt Cobain took to the stage in a wheelchair pushed by music journalist Everett True, parodying speculations about his mental health. He then went on to join the rest of the band, playing an assortment of old and new material.[16]
Over the next few years the festival continued to grow as the popularity of outdoor festivals increased. Britpop and indie continued to dominate along with rock. Notably, rap acts such as Ice Cube began to appear regularly on the main stage to mixed receptions. Public Enemy headlined the second day of the 1992 Festival. Beastie Boys were about halfway down the bill for day three.
In 1996, the remnants of The Stone Roses played their disastrous final gig at the festival.[17]
In 1998, it absorbed the failed Phoenix Festival. This resulted in a now infamous on-stage spat between Beastie Boys and The Prodigy over the song "Smack My Bitch Up".[10]
In 1999,[18] the festival gained a second leg at Temple Newsam in Leeds, where the V Festival had been held in 1997 and 1998, when it was clear that the Reading site had become too small to deal with the increasing demand.[19] The first year saw all bands play the Leeds site the following day to the day they played Reading, with the Reading leg running from Friday to Sunday and the Leeds leg running from Saturday to Monday. However in 2001 the current system where the line-up of Reading play Leeds the following day, with the bands from Leeds' opening day playing the final day in Reading, was introduced.
After a successful first year in Leeds, a continued resurgence in the popularity of outdoor music festivals led to the Reading festival selling out more and more quickly every year. The Leeds leg, however, was plagued by riots and violence which led to problems in retaining its licence.[20] The worst of these was in 2002, after which Mean Fiddler moved the festival to Bramham Park, near Bramham north-east of Leeds in 2003.[21] Since then, security at both sites has increased and problems have been reduced. (Although the Bramham Park site presents more challenges to the stage builders, it is far better suited to the needs of festival goers.)[22]
The early 2000s saw a varied but predominantly rock line-up, though as the decade has progressed the Main Stage and Radio 1 Stage line-up has featured mostly Indie artists.
In 2003, Mark Hatchard of Hotbox Events was asked by Festival Republic to supply a group of volunteers for Leeds Festival. Since then, these volunteers have become known as CATs (Campsite Assistant Teams)and HATs (Helpful Arena Teams). These teams are now a permanent feature at Leeds and Reading Festivals, as well as Latitude Festival and The Big Chill Festival.[23]
In 2005, the main stages at both Reading and Leeds were made larger, featuring unique cantilevered video screens.
In 2005, the Festival spawned the Reading Fringe Festival in the town. Much like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, this sees venues in the town hosting fringe acts hoping to draw crowds and industry figures from the larger festival. The Reading Fringe has run annually since then.
The announcement of the line-up and ticket release for the 2006 festival saw weekend tickets for Reading sell out in just under two hours, breaking all records so far, and emphasising the growing desire for live music because of the "rock revival" of the past few years, and the fact that the Glastonbury Festival was not taking place. Further Weekend tickets went on sale again soon after and sold out in 26 minutes.
Also in 2006, Mean Fiddler announced that they were using the Government's new licensing laws to keep the festival going later into the night (an attempt to quell some of the unrest of earlier years). The organisers kept attendees happy with the Aftershock tent, an Oxfam tent and the Silent Disco.
The 2007 festival ran from 24 to 27 August. However, concerns were raised at the Reading site due to the torrential weather conditions in the UK.[24] The River Thames burst its banks causing floods at the festival site and the introduction of contingency plans to move campsites and car parks if the floods persisted.
In 2007, Kaiser Chiefs played a 'secret' set in the Carling Tent at the Leeds site only (Leeds being their home city) under the name Hooks For Hands.
The Reading and Leeds Festivals took place on the weekend of the 22 to 24 August. Tickets had been released on March 31 at 6:45pm[25] and sold out in less than 2 hours.[26] Tickets sold through HMV also sold out in just one hour.
This was the first year "BBC Introducing..." had a stage at the festival. This replaced the Top Man Unsigned stage at the Leeds leg and was a new addition to the Reading site.
The 2008 Reading Festival saw a large number of site changes, including relocation of the wristband exchange to the external gates, the Reading Festival Bridge over the River Thames in order to connect the white campsite to the main area, and numerous security improvements.
A combination of the box office changes resulting in disorderly queues of as many as 50 people or more wide at places and higher demand than previous years due to several festival-goers having purchased tickets from fake websites, meant that people queued for 15 hours or more in some cases.
The Leeds Festival site saw incredibly heavy rainfall and was completely waterlogged from the Thursday onwards, causing massive problems travelling between campsite and arena. The bad weather plus many thousands of people resulted in campsites up to a foot deep in mud.
The pre-sale for 2009 tickets officially sold out in two days. A further release took place on March 30 at 7:00 pm. Weekend tickets were sold out in a matter of hours for the Reading Festival.
Flags were banned from both festival sites for the first time in 2009.[27] Flags and banners have been a traditional part of the Reading Festival scene ever since the early 1970s, originally used to enable motorbike groups and others to identify themselves and find each other inside the main arena.
A new sound system was used in 2009 at both the Reading and Leeds sites, and the consensus was that the sound quality in the field was markedly improved.
The initial line-up announcement was made on 29 March 2010, shortly after tickets went on sale. On 16 August 2010, it was confirmed that Guns N' Roses, Arcade Fire and Blink-182 would headline the main stage, with Lostprophets, Queens of the Stone Age, The Libertines, Paramore, LCD Soundsystem, Billy Talent, Biffy Clyro, Pendulum, Weezer, Klaxons, Modest Mouse and Frank Turner also playing over the weekend.[28]
Controversy arose after Guns N' Roses turned up 60 minutes late for their headlining slot, despite being warned by festival organisers beforehand that they would be pulled from the bill if they failed to comply with the time regulations. After running over by 30 minutes, the band's sound was cut and after a rendition of "Paradise City" the members staged a sit down protest. Many fans however had already left and were disappointed in the band's failure to apologise for the incident.[29]
The initial line-up announcement was made on 21 March 2011, after tickets went on sale. My Chemical Romance, Pulp, The Strokes and Muse were confirmed as headliners at the three-day festival. Breaking the pattern of selling out, tickets to both sites failed to sell out within the first months, let alone the first few hours as previous years had achieved.[30] On 26 July 2011, Festival Republic announced that all weekend tickets to Reading Festival had sold out - 127 days after going on sale. However, many fans have pointed out that weekend tickets were still available from authorised ticket seller Stargreen right up until the day before the event opened, despite the event's official website claiming the event to be sold out. Day tickets for Leeds Festival tickets were also still available the day before the festival opened, however Weekend Tickets had sold out 2 days prior to the start of the festival.
The 2012 festival is set to take place over the weekend of 24th-26th August, the pre sale tickets go on sale early December 2011, with general sale set for late March 2012 along with the first line up announcement.
Bottling acts offstage (being forced off stage by a barrage of audience-thrown plastic bottles and cans) is a popular 'tradition' at the festival.[31] While the mass-participation can and bottle fights of the 1970s and 1980s have long since ended, unpopular bands have been bottled offstage throughout the festival's history.[32] Examples include:
Historical line-up posters can be seen on the individual official festival websites:
