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EspañolREADING AND LEEDS FESTIVALS
(Redirected from Reading Festival)
The 'Reading and Leeds Festivals', officially called the 'Carling Weekend', are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. 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).
Reading festival has had various musical phases, as detailed below. In the twin-site era, rock/alternative/indie/punk/metal have tended to dominate. The festival will typically have the following stages:-
★ Main stage - major rock/indie/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/hardcore acts. Due to demand, from 2006 this stage took up 2 days rather than previous years where it was only 1 day.
★ Dance tent - dance music acts, on the day that the above stage does not run
★ Alternative tent - comedy and cabaret acts plus DJs
★ TopMan Unsigned tent - Unsigned acts from the local area (Leeds only)
The festivals are run by Festival Republic, which was recently divested from Mean Fiddler Music Group, and are currently sponsored by Carling. For promotional purposes they are known as the ''Carling Weekend: Reading'' and the ''Carling Weekend: Leeds''. Unsurprisingly, these titles are seldom used when not required, although NME does so as part of its involvement.
In 2005 the capacity of the Reading site was 66,500 and the Leeds site was 57,500. For the 2006 festival, capacities were increased at both sites with 80,000 at Reading and 70,000[1] at Leeds. 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.
Main articles: 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 a few times, being held at Windsor Racecourse, Kempton Park and Plumpton, before finally reaching Reading in 1971.
The line-up settled into a pattern of prog rock, blues and heavy metal during the 1970s. It did dabble with punk rock in 1978 when The Jam, Sham 69 & Penetration played. 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.
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 & new wave bands on the opening day.
Then, 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. 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.
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.
1988 saw a disastrous attempt to take the festival in a mainstream commercial pop direction, dominated by the likes of Starship, Squeeze, Bonnie Tyler and Meat Loaf (the latter two being "bottled" off stage), and the ensuing recriminations saw the ousting of original festival promoter Harold Pendleton by the Mean Fiddler Music Group organization. However, Pendleton's rival "Redding Festival" failed to take off.
The future of the festival looked in doubt at this point. However, things were to improve once again in the 1990s...
In 1991 Nirvana played the first of their two appearances to massive crowds. This is also the year the first britpop bands such as Suede and Blur started to show themselves on the festival circuit.
The next year 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. At one point in the show, Cobain revealed to the crowd the recent birth of his daughter Frances Bean and succeeded in having the crowd chant "We love you, Courtney!" in unison (reference to his wife, musician Courtney Love).
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.
In 1998 it absorbed the failed Phoenix Festival. This resulted in the infamous on-stage spat between The Beastie Boys and The Prodigy over the song 'Smack My Bitch Up'.
In 1999 the festival gained another leg at Temple Newsam in Leeds, where V Festival has 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.
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. [2] 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. Since then, security at both sites has increased and problems appear to have been quelled. 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 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 it was 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 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. A second Fringe followed in 2006 and at the time of writing plans for a 3rd festival in 2007 are well under way.
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.
Tickets for the festival were released on the 19th 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[3].
The 2007 Festivals started on the 24th August carrying on until the 27th. However concerns were raised at the Reading site due to the torrential weather conditions in the UK [4]. 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"[5]. Plans were put in place to move campsites and car parks if the floods persisted.
These plans were layed 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 this years festivals, Kaiser Chiefs played at the Leeds portion of the festival (their home city) under the name Hooks For Hands on 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.
The 'tradition' of unpopular bands being bottled off (being forced off stage by a barrage of audience-thrown plastic bottles, sometimes filled with urine) has continued; famously, Daphne and Celeste suffered this ignominy in 2000 retreating after a wheel chair was thrown at them. Some have questioned the wisdon of putting the teen pop duo after the Heavy Metal Band, Slipknot. . Good Charlotte experienced it in 2003, but remained on-stage and encouraged the crowd to throw more. In 2004, The Rasmus were bottled off at Reading, as was 50 Cent (with urine, fireworks, mud, pieces of furniture and generally anything that people could get their hands on - even a children's paddling pool) in Reading only.
Some question the wisdom of organisers placing 50 Cent, a rap/urban act, in between Placebo and Green Day, both rock acts (although other rap acts including The Streets, The Roots and Jurassic 5 played earlier in the day with little or no incident). 50 Cent lasted nearly 20 minutes at Reading, before throwing his microphone into the crowd in anger after a deck chair was thrown on-stage.
In 2005, Fightstar, despite suffering a barrage themselves, remained playing throughout their entire set as the audience's bottle supply was quickly exhausted. This has given the band, featuring Charlie Simpson, an ex-member of pop group Busted, a level of admiration and praise for being able to remain on-stage throughout the incident.
In 2006 at Reading, Panic! at the Disco lead singer Brendon Urie was knocked unconscious from a hit by a plastic bottle half filled with a citrus flavoured fizzy drink thrown from the crowd, causing the band to stop for 3 minutes while he received medical attention, before continuing to play the whole of the set with no more bottles directly hitting them. 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). My Chemical Romance also suffered a barrage of bottles in 2006, but completed their set, encouraging the crowd to boo, hiss and throw more. Aiden were famously bottled at the Reading Festival 2006, and singer Wil Francis made it considerably worse by shouting "Let's see what you got, you fucking pussies!", which led to further pelting. The controversial decision by organisers to let 50 Cent play the previous year and the chaos that ensued as a result of that decision did not put the organisers off from inviting other hip hop/rap artists such as Lethal Bizzle to play on the Carling stage, and Dizzee Rascal to play a set as second headliner on the NME/Radio One stage.
On 25th August 2007 at Reading, Angels and Airwaves were set to play on the Main Stage at 16:30 GMT. Sections of the audience, which had all seemed very supportive of all of the acts since Paramore, suddenly changed their mood. Bottles half-filled with water and Carling beer were thrown at lead singer Tom DeLonge (who apparently had gotten drunk prior to going on stage) as well as the rest of the band. During gaps between songs, Tom expressed his opinion of the Reading fans openly, declaring that the band and himself had "...fucked all of their Moms.", and also told the crowd several times "You're Fucking Welcome!" despite the fact that some audience members were still cheering for them.
The band completed their set, despite the onslaught of bottles from the audience and were given the One Finger Salute
by a number of audience members as they left the stage.
20 Minutes Later, Panic! made their apperance on the Reading Main Stage and were greated by empty plastic bottles raining down from the audience on the stage. The bassist Jon was hit in the head by a bottle.[6] The band and the audience seemed to treat this as a joke, after the incident last year. Panic! then went on to play their full set.
On 26th August, 2007 just before Lostprophets were about to play their set a somewhat impatient crowd began throwing bottles at each other in response to Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz encouraging such following the bottling of the band the previous year. In quite a specific area of the field, thousands of bottles were launched in about a 5 minute period which escalated into many injuries to crowd members and more specifically people on shoulders of others were routinely attacked, sometimes at very close range with heavy bottles filled with liquid. Lostprophets were very popular during their set with much violence continuing within the expected mosh pits.
(Reading since 1994, Leeds since 1999)
★ 2007: Razorlight, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Smashing Pumpkins, Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire, Nine Inch Nails, Lostprophets
★ 2006: Franz Ferdinand, Muse, Pearl Jam, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, Placebo
★ 2005: Pixies, Foo Fighters, Iron Maiden, The Killers, Kings of Leon, Marilyn Manson
★ 2004: The Darkness, The White Stripes, Green Day, The Offspring, Morrissey, 50 Cent
★ 2003: Linkin Park, Blur, Metallica, blink-182, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, System of a Down
★ 2002: The Strokes, Foo Fighters, Guns N' Roses (Leeds only), Pulp, Muse, The Prodigy, The Offspring
★ 2001: Travis, Manic Street Preachers, Eminem, Green Day, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Marilyn Manson,
★ 2000: Oasis, Pulp, Stereophonics, Primal Scream, Beck, Placebo
★ 1999: The Charlatans, Blur, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Chemical Brothers, Catatonia, The Offspring
★ 1998: Page and Plant, Beastie Boys, Garbage, Ash, The Prodigy, New Order
★ 1997: Suede, Manic Street Preachers, Metallica, Embrace, The Verve
★ 1996: The Prodigy, Black Grape, The Stone Roses, Underworld
★ 1995: Smashing Pumpkins, Björk, Neil Young, Foo Fighters, Gene, Bluetones
★ 1994: Cypress Hill, Primal Scream, Red Hot Chili Peppers
★ 1993: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Porno for Pyros, The The, New Order, Kingmaker, Boo Radleys, Elastica
★ 1992: Nirvana, The Wonder Stuff, Public Enemy, The Charlatans, L7, Ride, Nick Cave
★ 1991: Iggy Pop, James, The Sisters of Mercy, Sonic Youth
★ 1990: The Cramps, Inspiral Carpets, Pixies
★ 1989: New Order, The Pogues, The Mission, The Sugarcubes, New Model Army, The Wonder Stuff
★ 1988: Ramones, Starship, Squeeze
★ 1987: The Mission, Status Quo, Alice Cooper
★ 1986: Killing Joke, Hawkwind, Saxon
★ 1984 and 1985: No festival these years
★ 1983: The Stranglers, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Twisted Sister
★ 1982: Budgie, Iron Maiden, Michael Schenker
★ 1981: Girlschool, Gillan, The Kinks
★ 1980: Slade, Rory Gallagher, UFO, Whitesnake
★ 1979: The Police, Inner Circle, The Ramones
★ 1978: The Jam, Status Quo, Patti Smith
★ 1977: Golden Earring, Thin Lizzy, Alex Harvey
★ 1976: Gong, Rory Gallagher, Osibisa
★ 1975: Hawkwind, Yes, Wishbone Ash
★ 1974: Alex Harvey, 10cc, Traffic
★ 1973: Rory Gallagher, The Faces, Genesis
★ 1972: Curved Air, The Faces, Ten Years After
★ 1971: Arthur Brown, East of Eden, Colosseum
★ 1970: The Groundhogs, Cat Stevens, Deep Purple
★ 1969: Pink Floyd, The Who, The Nice
★ 1968: T. Rex, Jethro Tull, The Nice
★ 1967: The Small Faces, Paul Jones, Cream
★ 1966: The Who, The Yardbirds, Cream
★ 1965: The Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, The Animals
★ 1964: The Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, The Rolling Stones
★ 1963: The Rolling Stones, Long John Baldry, Muddy Waters
★ 1962: Humphrey Lyttelton, Kenny Ball
★ 1961: Roger Damen, John Frodsham, Dick Charlesworth, Charlie Barnes, Tubby Hayes, Ken Colyer, Clyde Valley Stompers
1.
An extra 5,000 tickets are granted for the Leeds Festival
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2216223.stm
3. Computer error frustrates Reading and Leeds fans Paul MacInnes
4. 2007 United Kingdom Floods
5. "This is the Carling Weekend: Reading Festival site", NME, 4 August, 2007
6. Panic! Bottled again!
★ Reading and Leeds Festivals line-ups
★ List of music festivals in the United Kingdom
★ Workers Beer Company, Workers Beer Company
★ Reading Festival official website
★ Leeds Festival official website
★ Carling Weekend: Reading Festival and Carling Weekend: Leeds Festival page
★ The world's greatest Carling Weekend: Reading Festival 2007 gallery!
★ Recollections and photographs from over 20 years of the Reading Festival
★ View from the Leeds Festival's local paper (Wetherby News)
The 'Reading and Leeds Festivals', officially called the 'Carling Weekend', are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. 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).
Reading festival has had various musical phases, as detailed below. In the twin-site era, rock/alternative/indie/punk/metal have tended to dominate. The festival will typically have the following stages:-
★ Main stage - major rock/indie/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/hardcore acts. Due to demand, from 2006 this stage took up 2 days rather than previous years where it was only 1 day.
★ Dance tent - dance music acts, on the day that the above stage does not run
★ Alternative tent - comedy and cabaret acts plus DJs
★ TopMan Unsigned tent - Unsigned acts from the local area (Leeds only)
The festivals are run by Festival Republic, which was recently divested from Mean Fiddler Music Group, and are currently sponsored by Carling. For promotional purposes they are known as the ''Carling Weekend: Reading'' and the ''Carling Weekend: Leeds''. Unsurprisingly, these titles are seldom used when not required, although NME does so as part of its involvement.
In 2005 the capacity of the Reading site was 66,500 and the Leeds site was 57,500. For the 2006 festival, capacities were increased at both sites with 80,000 at Reading and 70,000[1] at Leeds. 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.
| Contents |
| Early history |
| 1970s |
| 1980s |
| Conservative ban |
| Late 80s slump |
| 1990s |
| Kurt Cobain's wheelchair |
| Festival expansion |
| 2000s |
| 2007 |
| Bottled Off |
| List of Headliners |
| Notes |
| See also |
| External links |
Early history
Main articles: 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 a few times, being held at Windsor Racecourse, Kempton Park and Plumpton, before finally reaching Reading in 1971.
1970s
The line-up settled into a pattern of prog rock, blues and heavy metal during the 1970s. It did dabble with punk rock in 1978 when The Jam, Sham 69 & Penetration played. 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.
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 & new wave bands on the opening day.
Conservative ban
Then, 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. 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.
Late 80s slump
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.
1988 saw a disastrous attempt to take the festival in a mainstream commercial pop direction, dominated by the likes of Starship, Squeeze, Bonnie Tyler and Meat Loaf (the latter two being "bottled" off stage), and the ensuing recriminations saw the ousting of original festival promoter Harold Pendleton by the Mean Fiddler Music Group organization. However, Pendleton's rival "Redding Festival" failed to take off.
The future of the festival looked in doubt at this point. However, things were to improve once again in the 1990s...
1990s
The NME/Radio 1 tent at the 2005 Reading Festival
In 1991 Nirvana played the first of their two appearances to massive crowds. 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
The next year 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. At one point in the show, Cobain revealed to the crowd the recent birth of his daughter Frances Bean and succeeded in having the crowd chant "We love you, Courtney!" in unison (reference to his wife, musician Courtney Love).
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.
In 1998 it absorbed the failed Phoenix Festival. This resulted in the infamous on-stage spat between The Beastie Boys and The Prodigy over the song 'Smack My Bitch Up'.
In 1999 the festival gained another leg at Temple Newsam in Leeds, where V Festival has 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.
2000s
A 2006 Reading Festival weekend wristband.
A fire at Reading 2005
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. [2] 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. Since then, security at both sites has increased and problems appear to have been quelled. 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 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 it was 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 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. A second Fringe followed in 2006 and at the time of writing plans for a 3rd festival in 2007 are well under way.
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.
2007
A 2007 Leeds Festival Weekend Ticket.
Tickets for the festival were released on the 19th 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[3].
The 2007 Festivals started on the 24th August carrying on until the 27th. However concerns were raised at the Reading site due to the torrential weather conditions in the UK [4]. 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"[5]. Plans were put in place to move campsites and car parks if the floods persisted.
These plans were layed 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 this years festivals, Kaiser Chiefs played at the Leeds portion of the festival (their home city) under the name Hooks For Hands on 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.
Bottled Off
The 'tradition' of unpopular bands being bottled off (being forced off stage by a barrage of audience-thrown plastic bottles, sometimes filled with urine) has continued; famously, Daphne and Celeste suffered this ignominy in 2000 retreating after a wheel chair was thrown at them. Some have questioned the wisdon of putting the teen pop duo after the Heavy Metal Band, Slipknot. . Good Charlotte experienced it in 2003, but remained on-stage and encouraged the crowd to throw more. In 2004, The Rasmus were bottled off at Reading, as was 50 Cent (with urine, fireworks, mud, pieces of furniture and generally anything that people could get their hands on - even a children's paddling pool) in Reading only.
Some question the wisdom of organisers placing 50 Cent, a rap/urban act, in between Placebo and Green Day, both rock acts (although other rap acts including The Streets, The Roots and Jurassic 5 played earlier in the day with little or no incident). 50 Cent lasted nearly 20 minutes at Reading, before throwing his microphone into the crowd in anger after a deck chair was thrown on-stage.
In 2005, Fightstar, despite suffering a barrage themselves, remained playing throughout their entire set as the audience's bottle supply was quickly exhausted. This has given the band, featuring Charlie Simpson, an ex-member of pop group Busted, a level of admiration and praise for being able to remain on-stage throughout the incident.
In 2006 at Reading, Panic! at the Disco lead singer Brendon Urie was knocked unconscious from a hit by a plastic bottle half filled with a citrus flavoured fizzy drink thrown from the crowd, causing the band to stop for 3 minutes while he received medical attention, before continuing to play the whole of the set with no more bottles directly hitting them. 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). My Chemical Romance also suffered a barrage of bottles in 2006, but completed their set, encouraging the crowd to boo, hiss and throw more. Aiden were famously bottled at the Reading Festival 2006, and singer Wil Francis made it considerably worse by shouting "Let's see what you got, you fucking pussies!", which led to further pelting. The controversial decision by organisers to let 50 Cent play the previous year and the chaos that ensued as a result of that decision did not put the organisers off from inviting other hip hop/rap artists such as Lethal Bizzle to play on the Carling stage, and Dizzee Rascal to play a set as second headliner on the NME/Radio One stage.
On 25th August 2007 at Reading, Angels and Airwaves were set to play on the Main Stage at 16:30 GMT. Sections of the audience, which had all seemed very supportive of all of the acts since Paramore, suddenly changed their mood. Bottles half-filled with water and Carling beer were thrown at lead singer Tom DeLonge (who apparently had gotten drunk prior to going on stage) as well as the rest of the band. During gaps between songs, Tom expressed his opinion of the Reading fans openly, declaring that the band and himself had "...fucked all of their Moms.", and also told the crowd several times "You're Fucking Welcome!" despite the fact that some audience members were still cheering for them.
The band completed their set, despite the onslaught of bottles from the audience and were given the One Finger Salute
by a number of audience members as they left the stage.
20 Minutes Later, Panic! made their apperance on the Reading Main Stage and were greated by empty plastic bottles raining down from the audience on the stage. The bassist Jon was hit in the head by a bottle.[6] The band and the audience seemed to treat this as a joke, after the incident last year. Panic! then went on to play their full set.
On 26th August, 2007 just before Lostprophets were about to play their set a somewhat impatient crowd began throwing bottles at each other in response to Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz encouraging such following the bottling of the band the previous year. In quite a specific area of the field, thousands of bottles were launched in about a 5 minute period which escalated into many injuries to crowd members and more specifically people on shoulders of others were routinely attacked, sometimes at very close range with heavy bottles filled with liquid. Lostprophets were very popular during their set with much violence continuing within the expected mosh pits.
List of Headliners
(Reading since 1994, Leeds since 1999)
★ 2007: Razorlight, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Smashing Pumpkins, Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire, Nine Inch Nails, Lostprophets
★ 2006: Franz Ferdinand, Muse, Pearl Jam, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, Placebo
★ 2005: Pixies, Foo Fighters, Iron Maiden, The Killers, Kings of Leon, Marilyn Manson
★ 2004: The Darkness, The White Stripes, Green Day, The Offspring, Morrissey, 50 Cent
★ 2003: Linkin Park, Blur, Metallica, blink-182, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, System of a Down
★ 2002: The Strokes, Foo Fighters, Guns N' Roses (Leeds only), Pulp, Muse, The Prodigy, The Offspring
★ 2001: Travis, Manic Street Preachers, Eminem, Green Day, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Marilyn Manson,
★ 2000: Oasis, Pulp, Stereophonics, Primal Scream, Beck, Placebo
★ 1999: The Charlatans, Blur, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Chemical Brothers, Catatonia, The Offspring
★ 1998: Page and Plant, Beastie Boys, Garbage, Ash, The Prodigy, New Order
★ 1997: Suede, Manic Street Preachers, Metallica, Embrace, The Verve
★ 1996: The Prodigy, Black Grape, The Stone Roses, Underworld
★ 1995: Smashing Pumpkins, Björk, Neil Young, Foo Fighters, Gene, Bluetones
★ 1994: Cypress Hill, Primal Scream, Red Hot Chili Peppers
★ 1993: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Porno for Pyros, The The, New Order, Kingmaker, Boo Radleys, Elastica
★ 1992: Nirvana, The Wonder Stuff, Public Enemy, The Charlatans, L7, Ride, Nick Cave
★ 1991: Iggy Pop, James, The Sisters of Mercy, Sonic Youth
★ 1990: The Cramps, Inspiral Carpets, Pixies
★ 1989: New Order, The Pogues, The Mission, The Sugarcubes, New Model Army, The Wonder Stuff
★ 1988: Ramones, Starship, Squeeze
★ 1987: The Mission, Status Quo, Alice Cooper
★ 1986: Killing Joke, Hawkwind, Saxon
★ 1984 and 1985: No festival these years
★ 1983: The Stranglers, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Twisted Sister
★ 1982: Budgie, Iron Maiden, Michael Schenker
★ 1981: Girlschool, Gillan, The Kinks
★ 1980: Slade, Rory Gallagher, UFO, Whitesnake
★ 1979: The Police, Inner Circle, The Ramones
★ 1978: The Jam, Status Quo, Patti Smith
★ 1977: Golden Earring, Thin Lizzy, Alex Harvey
★ 1976: Gong, Rory Gallagher, Osibisa
★ 1975: Hawkwind, Yes, Wishbone Ash
★ 1974: Alex Harvey, 10cc, Traffic
★ 1973: Rory Gallagher, The Faces, Genesis
★ 1972: Curved Air, The Faces, Ten Years After
★ 1971: Arthur Brown, East of Eden, Colosseum
★ 1970: The Groundhogs, Cat Stevens, Deep Purple
★ 1969: Pink Floyd, The Who, The Nice
★ 1968: T. Rex, Jethro Tull, The Nice
★ 1967: The Small Faces, Paul Jones, Cream
★ 1966: The Who, The Yardbirds, Cream
★ 1965: The Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, The Animals
★ 1964: The Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, The Rolling Stones
★ 1963: The Rolling Stones, Long John Baldry, Muddy Waters
★ 1962: Humphrey Lyttelton, Kenny Ball
★ 1961: Roger Damen, John Frodsham, Dick Charlesworth, Charlie Barnes, Tubby Hayes, Ken Colyer, Clyde Valley Stompers
Notes
1.
An extra 5,000 tickets are granted for the Leeds Festival
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2216223.stm
3. Computer error frustrates Reading and Leeds fans Paul MacInnes
4. 2007 United Kingdom Floods
5. "This is the Carling Weekend: Reading Festival site", NME, 4 August, 2007
6. Panic! Bottled again!
See also
★ Reading and Leeds Festivals line-ups
★ List of music festivals in the United Kingdom
★ Workers Beer Company, Workers Beer Company
External links
★ Reading Festival official website
★ Leeds Festival official website
★ Carling Weekend: Reading Festival and Carling Weekend: Leeds Festival page
★ The world's greatest Carling Weekend: Reading Festival 2007 gallery!
★ Recollections and photographs from over 20 years of the Reading Festival
★ View from the Leeds Festival's local paper (Wetherby News)
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