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Reading and Leeds Festivals

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"Leeds Festival" redirects here. For other uses, see Leeds Festival (disambiguation).
Reading and Leeds Festivals
GenreRock, alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock, indie rock, dance
DatesAugust bank holiday
Location(s)England
  • Various as National Jazz Festival (1961–1970)
  • Reading (since 1971)
  • Leeds (since 1999)
Years active1961–present
Websitewww.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 and are run by Festival Republic. The events both happen on the bank holiday weekend in August (on Friday, Saturday, Sunday), and share the same bill (usually with one or two exceptions). Between 1998 and 2007 the dual festivals were known officially as the "Carling Weekend" until parting ways with their sponsor Carling in November 2007.

Reading festival has had various musical phases, as detailed below. In the twin-site era, rock, alternative, indie, punk and metal have tended to dominate. The festival typically has the following stages:[1]

  • Main stage – major rock, indie and alternative acts
  • NME/Radio 1 stage – less well-known acts, building up to an alternative headline act
  • Carling stage – acts with less popular appeal and breakthrough acts
  • Radio 1 Lock Up Stage – underground punk and hardcore acts.[2] Due to demand, from 2006 this stage took up two days rather than previous years where it was only one day.
  • Dance tent – dance music acts, on the day that the above stage does not run
  • Alternative tent – comedy and cabaret acts plus DJs.[3]
  • TopMan Unsigned stage – Unsigned acts from the local area (Leeds only).[4]

The festivals are run by Festival Republic, which was divested from Mean Fiddler Music Group[5]. 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 2007, the organisers welcomed "Reading Festival reclaiming its prestigious name" when the sponsored title was abolished.[6]

In 2007, the capacity of the Reading site was 80,000[7] and the Leeds site was 70,000.[8] This was an increase of several thousand on previous years[9] 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, the grounds of a historic house. Campsites are available at both sites and weekend tickets include free camping. Day tickets are also sold.

History

Main article: National Jazz and Blues Festival

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 the years, the festival changed names and moved around sites several times, being held at Windsor Racecourse, Kempton Park and Plumpton, before finally reaching Reading in 1971.[10]

1970s

File:Reading festival sticker 1976.png
Reading festival promotional sticker from 1976

The line-up settled into a pattern of prog rock, blues and heavy metal during the 1970s[11]. It did dabble with punk rock in 1978 when The Jam, Sham 69 and Penetration played.[12] 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.[13]

1980s

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.

Conservative ban

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. A proposed move to Lilford in Northamptonshire failed, and eventually a Labour Party council election win in 1986 saw the festival restored to fields adjacent to its original site with a line-up put together from scratch at just three months' notice.[14] The Arts & Entertainments councillor responsible for the re-introduction of the festival was Martin Salter, now MP for Reading West, the constituency where the festival is held.[15]

The following year notched up a record attendance at what was to be the last of the "classic" rock years of the festival, with headlining acts such as The Stranglers, Alice Cooper and Status Quo.

Late 80s slump

1988 saw a disastrous attempt to take the festival in a mainstream commercial pop direction[16], 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 organization.[17]

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.

1990s

The NME/Radio 1 tent at the 2005 Reading Festival

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.

Kurt Cobain's wheelchair

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. 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. Then he got up and joined the rest of the band, playing an assortment of old and new material[18]. At one point in the show before singing "All Apologies", Cobain revealed to the crowd the recent birth of his daughter Frances Bean and succeeded in having the crowd chant "Courtney, we love you!" in unison (in reference to his wife, 'musician' Courtney Love).[19]

Festival expansion

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.

In 1996, The Stone Roses played their final gig at the festival.[20]

In 1998 it absorbed the failed Phoenix Festival. This resulted in a now infamous on-stage spat between The Beastie Boys and The Prodigy over the song "Smack My Bitch Up".[21]

In 1999, the festival gained another leg at Temple Newsam in Leeds, where V Festival had been held in 1997 and 1998, when it was clear that the Reading site was far too small to deal with the demand. A 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, soon developed.[22]

2000s

A 2006 Reading Festival weekend wristband.
A fire at Leeds 2007

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.[23] The worst of these was in 2002, after which Mean Fiddler moved the festival to Bramham Park, near Wetherby to the east of Leeds in 2003.[24] Since then, security at both sites has increased and problems appear to have been quelled.[25] However, this has also lead to an increase in demand.

The first few years of the 2000s saw a varied but predominantly rock line-up, however as the decade has progressed the Main Stage and Radio 1 Stage line-up has followed music trends and featured more and more indie artists, that have become very popular in the British music mainstream. However, one day (Sunday in the case of Reading) is traditionally set aside for hard rock and metal. This was most pronounced at the 2006 festival, which saw little hard rock on the first two days, but featured bands such as Mastodon, Slayer and Pearl Jam on the Sunday. However this can be arguably laid down to the growing popularity of the Download festival in June providing a solely metal, hard rock and punk outlet.

The then largely unknown Arctic Monkeys famously filled the Carling Tents, with crowds outside, at both festivals in 2005. In 2006, they were the second headliners (after reportedly turning down the Headline Slot)—a remarkable jump up the bill.

The Evening Session tent has also had its share of infamous sets, like Feeder's set in 2002 which saw the tent heavily overcrowded, with many people watching from outside as a result. The band decided to play the second stage to keep the show low-key, as it was their first official appearance after the death of their drummer Jon Lee. The BBC Radio 1 broadcast of the set was repeated in late 2002, due to the bands frontman Grant Nicholas unable to attend a Steve Lamacq acoustic session after doctors' advice, and later in early 2006 on 6 Music.

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.

In 2005, the Festival spawned the Reading Fringe Festival in the town. Much like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 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.

A second Fringe followed in 2006 and a third in 2007.

Leeds Main Stage on 25th August 2007 in-between sets by Kings of Leon and Razorlight

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 revellers happy with the Aftershock tent, an Oxfam tent and the Silent Disco.

A 2007 Leeds Festival Weekend Ticket.

Tickets for the 2007 festival were released on 19 March and sold out within hours. However, over 3,000 fans found that their tickets were cancelled due to computer errors which caused a confirmation e-mail to be released even though the payment was denied.[26]

The 2007 festivals ran from 24 to 27 August. However, concerns were raised at the Reading site due to the torrential weather conditions in the UK.[27] The floods caused the River Thames to burst its bank causing floods at the festival site. Melvin Benn, the festival organiser said "I'd guess about 25% of the campsite is under water at the moment and before long someone will be saying that the festival is in danger, so I just wanted to state that the festival will definitely take place".[28] Plans were put in place to move campsites and car parks if the floods persisted. These plans were laid down by Melvin Benn in an e-mail sent to those signed up to the Reading Festival newsletter and on the official Reading Festival website.

Also at the 2007 festival, Kaiser Chiefs played at the Leeds portion of the festival (their home city) under the name Hooks For Hands in the Carling tent. Foo Fighters were due to play a secret show also at Reading, but did not prevail due to frontman Dave Grohl feeling ill and unable to perform.[citation needed]

2008

Tickets for 2008 were released on 31 March at 6:45pm[29], with the event scheduled to take place from 22 to 24 August.

Headliners

For the full line-up, see Reading and Leeds Festivals line-ups

Bottled off

While the mass-participation can and bottle fights of the 1970s and 1980s have long since ended, the Reading Festival 'tradition' of unpopular bands being bottled off (being forced off stage by a barrage of audience-thrown plastic bottles, sometimes filled with urine[citation needed]) has continued throughout its history.

The 1983 reggae act Steel Pulse suffered possibly the most vicious bottling-off ever seen at the Festival, before or since, disappearing within moments of appearing on stage under an avalanche of missiles launched by the temporarily united ranks of punks and rockers waiting to see The Stranglers.

In 1988 Bonnie Tyler bravely completed her set despite an unending barrage of bottles, turf and litter. Unfortunately, the day's headliner Meat Loaf was not so brave, retreating ingloriously only 20 minutes into his set after taking a 2-litre cider bottle full in the face.[citation needed]

Daphne and Celeste suffered this ignominy in 2000, retreating after a wheel chair was thrown at them.. Good Charlotte experienced it in 2003, but remained on-stage and encouraged the crowd to throw more[citation needed].

In 2004, it was the turn of rapper 50 Cent, who was pelted with fireworks, mud, pieces of furniture and generally anything that people could get their hands on [30] - even a children's paddling pool.[citation needed] 50 Cent lasted nearly 20 minutes before finally throwing his microphone into the crowd in anger when a deck chair was thrown on-stage. [citation needed] It was later revealed that Fifty Cent had stayed on purely to collect his fee which required a minimum of fifteen minutes.

In 2006 at Reading, Panic! at the Disco lead singer Brendon Urie was hit on the head by a plastic bottle, causing the band to stop for three minutes while he received medical attention before returning to complete their set. [31] Despite this, the band played their set at Leeds the following day with no incident (aside from a thank you and praise for being a better crowd)[citation needed].

List of headliners

Main article: Reading and Leeds Festivals line-ups

(Reading since 1994, Leeds since 1999)

Historical lineup posters can be seen on the official festival website.

References

  1. ^ "Carling festival main page". Retrieved 2008-01-14.
  2. ^ "New Stages Announced". Retrieved 2008-01-14.
  3. ^ "The Alternative stage". Retrieved 2008-01-14.
  4. ^ "The Topman stage". Retrieved 2008-01-14.
  5. ^ "Festival Republic About Page".
  6. ^ "Festivals part company with Carling".
  7. ^ "NME News".
  8. ^ "Increased Leeds Festival".
  9. ^ "An extra 5,000 tickets are granted for the Leeds Festival". Retrieved 2006-11-04. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  10. ^ Carling Weekend | Reading festival | 2006 | By Tom Knight
  11. ^ Leader: In praise of ... the Reading festival | | Guardian Unlimited Arts
  12. ^ Reading Rock Festival.Reading 1978
  13. ^ Reading Rock Festival.Reading 1979
  14. ^ Viator | Tours, Tickets & Things to do from Tour Operators Worldwide by Viator
  15. ^ Meet the man who plans the biggest party in Reading - Get Reading
  16. ^ Explore the Collections - Reading Festival
  17. ^ How I Got Here: Fiddling all over the world - MBAs Guide, Postgraduate - Independent.co.uk
  18. ^ BBC - Seven Ages of Rock - Events - Nirvana headline Reading Festival
  19. ^ All Music Spot :: Nirvana Biography
  20. ^ BBC - h2g2 - The Stone Roses - 'The Stone Roses'
  21. ^ Leader: In praise of ... the Reading festival | | Guardian Unlimited Arts
  22. ^ [1]
  23. ^ BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | Festival marred by violence
  24. ^ BBC NEWS | 2003 Festivals
  25. ^ BBC - Leeds - Entertainment - Happy campers
  26. ^ MacInnes, Paul (2007-03-22). "Computer error frustrates Reading and Leeds fans". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-08-06. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  27. ^ "2007 United Kingdom Floods". Retrieved 06 August 2007. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  28. ^ "This is the Carling Weekend: Reading Festival site", NME, 4 August, 2007
  29. ^ Reading & Leeds tickets go on sale
  30. ^ YouTube - 50 Cent at Reading 2004
  31. ^ [http://www.nme.com/news/panic-at-the-disco/24093

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Reading and Leeds Festivals.

Further reading

  • Carroll, Ian (2007). The Reading Festival: Music, Mud and Mayhem - The Official History. Reynolds & Hearn Ltd. ISBN 978-1-905287-43-7.
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