Reading and Leeds: The lowdown on next week’s announcement

We are well into festival booking/announcement/deciding-where-to-go season now. A lot of the major players have made their main announcements, confirming headliners and a bulk of the undercard, but the big one remains a week away. No it isn’t Glastonbury, nobody knows when that’s coming, it’s Reading and Leeds. The annual ‘we’ve got our results lets go get pissed in a field’ party drops its final headliner(s?!?) next Monday, giving us plenty of time to drool over it or rip it to shreds, depending on how things go. So with a week to go here’s all the speculation, conjecture and general rubbish you need to survive the next seven days.

The line-up so far

Who’s headlining?

Already confirmed to headline are Blink-182, for the second time in four years, and Arctic Monkeys who haven’t exactly been hard to see this last 12 months. Not particularly inspiring, but two big name headliners- and at least neither of them are Calvin Harris.  The question on everyone’s lips, however, is who will join them? Well given their presence in nearby Paris over the August bank holiday weekend and their distinct absence from every other UK festival line-up, it looks pretty likely that Queens of the Stone Age are going to be playing Reading and Leeds. Having sub-headlined twice in recent years, and bagging a number two album as well as a first arena tour last year, its only fair to assume that Josh & co will get the bump up to headline status. But, and this is a pretty big but, if rumours are to be believed they’re going to have to share that bump up with Paramore. Hayley Williams and her band haven’t confirmed any European dates this summer so far, but they’ve got a US tour ending the weekend before the festival. Rather convenient.

UPDATE: Reading and Leeds have just confirmed what we’ve known for ages- they’ve joined this year’s co-headliner hype:

Queens of the Stone Age and Paramore remain the favourites

Speculation that the mystery ‘Queen’ represents QOTSA and the mystery ‘King’ is Kings of Leon is wrong- Kings of Leon are at Isle of Wight on a UK festival exclusive.

There are other options, of course. The Black Keys also haven’t announced anything in the UK yet, although that could be set to change with Latitude due to confirm their third headliner this week, and there are question marks over their size. The same can be said for Florence & the Machine– 2014 is probably a bit too soon for her. Festival Republic could whip out a complete surprise, something like Black Sabbath, but that would be a rather alienating booking for most of the audience (although admittedly so were The Cure.) Big guns AC/DC were being quietly tipped for a couple of festivals late last year, in particular Reading and Leeds as well as Glastonbury. That would be a huge booking.

What about the other prominent slots?

So far we know one NME headliner- Disclosure. Who will be joining them is wide open, but we can rule out The 1975 and The Courteeners, as we would’ve been told when they were announced last month. Bring Me The Horizon were rumoured to be playing a few weeks back and with a main stage slot ruled out due to their Download commitments (all will be explained later) they could end up in the tent. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are busy on the continent all V weekend, so it looks likely they’ll end up at Reading and Leeds. Bombay Bicycle Club will be doing the rounds this summer and the likes of Foster The People or Crystal Castles could be back.

Sub-headline positions are a little less open, and a lot less inspiring. It seems You Me At Six will take up on of those slots and anyone taking an educated guess would put them under Blink-182. If we do get the co-headliners as rumoured that just leaves the slot under Arctic Monkeys, and there aren’t a great deal of options. Its worth considering The Black Keys or Florence & the Machine, but if both are heading towards headlining it would be rather silly to book them as sub-headliners at this time. Foals, who have been given the headline nod at Bestival, were rumoured to be playing a couple of months ago and The Vaccines, who have been unusually quiet, could also be in contention.

Last year we got a couple of surprises in System of a Down and Nine Inch Nails so it would be nice if Festival Republic could pull something out the bag again. Jack White has announced some American dates but nothing in Europe as of yet. Meanwhile, Pendulum do have dates announced in Europe but they’re only DJ sets amongst Knife Party sets- so it’s hard to imagine them going to full live band just for one show.  30 Seconds to Mars, now featuring an Oscar winner (maybe he should stick to acting…) have a full on European tour announced for June/July, but nothing announced for the UK yet, so keep an eye on that one.  UPDATE: Didn’t have to keep an eye on that one for long. 30 Seconds to Mars have just unveiled a co-headline tour with Linkin Park which includes two dates in Canada over Reading and Leeds weekend. Slipknot have been touted, although that seems unlikely given the recent departure of drummer Joey Jordison (and comments that they’d be in the studio all summer).

At least Justin has had a haircut since the last time The Vaccines played (credit)

Anyone else?

Over the last couple of days we’ve seen a few self-confirmations from the likes of Blood Red Shoes, Catfish & the Bottlemen, Drenge and The Orwells. We don’t know if they’ll be included in this announcement though. Further self confirmations and strong rumours will be added here as they come through.

Latest rumours (unconfirmed): Palma Violets, The Horrors, Deaf Havana, Klaxons, Lower Than Atlantis

Is there anyone we can rule out?

Yes, anyone playing V is almost definitely not going to play Reading and Leeds. This isn’t down to contracts; it just seems to be a thing. So that means no Manics or Blondie or Elbow. Sorry. Anyone playing on the main stage at Download wont play on the main stage at Reading and Leeds- this means you can rule out a lot of the larger bands, like Alter Bridge and Fall Out Boy (who were unlikely after playing last year anyway.) Smaller bands may drop down to play the NME or the Lock Up/Pit stages. For the most part, anyone headlining another festival in England or Wales is a no go. There are a few bands bound by exclusivity agreements at other festivals. Tame Impala, for example, can’t play as they’re English exclusives at Latitude. Finally, Sonisphere tweeted that The Prodigy weren’t playing Reading and Leeds.

Guy Garvey has found himself on the V lineup (Credit)

Who’s playing when?

Now, this is where things start to get complicated. First we’ll sort out the days, and the key to doing that is Warpaint. They’re the only band confirmed to play both Reading and Leeds and Rock en Seine in Paris who’ve stated the specific days they’re playing on their website. Assuming these dates are correct the following can be deduced:

• Bands playing Friday at Reading will play Saturday at Leeds
• Bands playing Saturday at Reading will play Sunday at Leeds
• Bands playing Sunday at Reading will play Friday at Leeds.

Time to get super-complicated. The Prodigy have also been confirmed for Rock en Seine, alongside Arctic Monkeys and Queens of the Stone Age. What does that tell us? Well, assuming The Prodigy have the correct date and assuming Queens get announced to headline (it’s pretty likely) it means Arctic Monkeys and QOTSA have to take up the Friday and Sunday headline slots in Paris. See where this is going? Yup, it means Blink will have to play those days at Reading and Leeds. So, as things stand, Blink-182 will be closing Reading festival. You might need to read that twice.

UPDATE: It seems Arctic Monkeys are supposedly playing Rock en Seine on the Friday, which (as you can probably work out) means they’ll be headlining Reading on the Saturday and closing Leeds.

What about Daft Punk?

No, that’s not happening. Don’t even start.

Any further questions feel free to tweet @MattDavies__