Reading and Leeds Festival preview

The Reading and Leeds weekenders have traditionally been the UK’s premier rock festivals.  With the number of summer music festivals increasing recently – and more and more attracting big-name headliners – the rock angle of Reading and Leeds has been accentuated in recent times in order to hang on to its image as the biggest and best festival choice for rock lovers.

This year that has been achieved with a startling array of talent on show over the three days and two sites.  Here, we take a closer look at this weekend’s Reading and Leeds festival:

Reading and Leeds line-up

The headliners at this year’s Reading and Leeds festivals speak for themselves.  Although, like many of the acts on the bill, they are American, there is plenty to appeal to UK rock fans.  Arcade Fire, on the back of their hugely successful third album The Suburbs, are sure to be the main stage highlight of the first day at Leeds and the Saturday night at Reading.  Axl Rose brings the unpredictable and ever-engrossing Guns N Roses to the UK for what should be a memorable appearance as they headline the Friday night at Reading and close the Leeds festival on Sunday.  The honour of closing the world-famous Reading festival goes to veteran American pop-punks Blink 182, who are sure to provide a feel-good sing-a-long end to proceedings after warming up in the Saturday night headline slot at Leeds.

The biggest news of the summer has been the reformation of The Libertines for this year’s Reading and Leeds festival.  Although it is surprising they haven’t been given a headline slot on the main stage, their two gigs (on Friday at Leeds and Saturday at Reading) are the most highly anticipated at any festival this year.  After the question of whether they will actually turn up, and on time, is answered, the big question of whether they are ready to perform for a massive festival crowd will be on everyone’s lips.

Elsewhere on the main stage there are a lot of promising acts to get festival goers excited.   As well as Dizzee Rascal, Cypress Hill, Modest Mouse and The Futureheads, American punk legends NOFX will be on hand to keep the crowds happy.

Away from the main stage, the Radio 1 / NME stage headliners really hammer home the strength of this year’s line-up.  LCD Soundsystem, Pendulum and Klaxons are all arguably big enough to headline a festival in their own right, so there’s either plenty of options or big dilemmas for music lovers, depending how you look at it.

Other highlights on the second stage include Crystal Castles, Foals, Kele, The Drums, Delphic, The Big Pink, Yeasayer and System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian.

Such a strong line-up is enough to give anyone going to Reading or Leeds selection headaches. Throw in headliners like Ash, Marina & The Diamonds, British Sea Power, Alkaline Trio and Roots Manuva on the other stages and it’s enough to give festival goers nightmares over missing so many potentially awesome festival sets.  It’s the kind of problem we pay all that money for tickets for though, so we shouldn’t complain!

To help you plan ahead, check out the below links for each festivals timetable (these shouldn’t be viewed as 100% accurate, but they do give a good idea of the times):

Leeds clash checker: http://bugs.rdmsoft.com/leeds/

Reading clash checker: http://www.clashfindergeneral.co.uk/s/rf2010/

Reading and Leeds festival weather forecast

The all important weather forecast for each site is as follows:

Leeds festival weather

Leeds looks likely to stay mostly dry over the weekend, with light showers forecast for Friday and Saturday.  In between showers, it is likely to be quite sunny with temperatures reaching a maximum of 19 degrees on Sunday.

Reading festival weather

Reading also looks to stay mainly dry over the weekend, with temperatures peaking at about 21 degrees on Sunday.  There is, however, a lot of rain forecast between now and the start of the festival so it would be wise to anticipate wet and muddy conditions on arrival.