Reading Leeds Festival 2017 - a vintage year
Keep an eye on the new names, music fanatics, especially this year!
Eminem, At The Drive In, CABBAGE (pictured below), Akala, Charli XCX, Lethal Bizzle, Ray Blk, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes Rat Boy, VANT, Judas, The Amazons, Kurupt FM, Yonaka, Get Inuit, God Damn, The View, Black Honey, Tom Grennan and cackle inducing comedian, Dane Baptiste, are set to rock the foundations of a history-in-the-making Reading and Leeds Festival weekend. This will be an "I was there" moment, especially courtesy of potential future headliners on the smaller stages joining globally reknown stars like Muse, Kasabian and Liam Gallagher.
A festival whose history includes Nirvana, Public Enemy, Blur, Rolling Stones, The Pixies and Radiohead is about to get an entry level boost with a fraction of Britain's newer wave rock n roll dreams invading 2017. The Shimmer Band and Asylums, invited back on merit. You may also not have experienced, or even heard of MOSES, Emily Capell, SONS, The Surrenders, SHEAFS, The Cosmics, False Heads, Paves, Avalanche Party, Blackwaters or The Sundowners (among many more that are in this story of music movement) but if you're lucky enough to catch them, they could become a positive part of your life. Fact.
August Bank Holiday can be so celebratory that Notting Hill Carnival/Reading Festival weekend needs a Bank Holiday Tuesday! These massive events are just two annual facets of true British culture, but the latter was traditionally the after-party of the national rock fest calendar. Nowadays twinned with Leeds Festival, among so many more major live music events, this gathering (like Glastonbury), remains a milestone for any artist that can get on the bill. The main stage’s massive names are an obvious attraction but there’s an army of awesome all over the bill, especially with home grown guitar band excitements throbbing under radar for the last few years.
The event's organisers have gone up even more in our estimation with the announcement of ReBalance at the Leeds Festival launch this month; “Festival Republic, supported by PRS Foundation, have just announced a new three year project based in Leeds, providing a step up for female led bands and solo artists". A pioneering, three year programme, that excites our #SheRocksFests vibe
Also, ridiculously exciting, is the fact that the Jack Rocks This Feeling Stage is about to land at Reading Festival like a rock and roll party space ship from another world.
The artists have genuinely won the hearts and minds of every event that “The Zone” (as it's known affectionately by regulars) has graced this year.
Be ready to get abducted.
This stage was a sensation at Leeds Festival in 2016, where brand new names to the festival circuit played.
The talents have swelled in reputation, adding to the credibility of this stage in less than a year. Yonaka (pictured at the Jack Rocks This Feeling stage at Isle Of Wight Festival in June, this year), play the Festival Republic Stage on Friday 25th June. Main Stage bands, Blossoms and Judas (like CABBAGE) are This Feeling alumni, also. Find this tent.
Prepare to witness future making escapist entertainment at close range. If you get there early enough. The artists are so excited to be playing festivals that their enthusiasm, mutual thrills and pure power explode like it may be the last chance they get to show what they can do.
It's a mutual experience and I love their dear, poetic hearts. I'm not the only one. Many friendly faces are to be found down the front. This year, the Jack Rocks This Feeling tents have spent most weekends rammed with rock n roll ravers, many staying put, at whichever festival they land at.
For 2017, Jack Daniels UK have chosen seven home grown, key rising star names – Trampolene (pictured left, again at their stage in June), Bang Bang Romeo, The Blinders, The Sundowners, The Wholls, White Room and Broken Witt Rebels.
The fact that 2/7 of these, “The #JackRocks7” (buzzing heritage composers and performers who are potential future festival headliners) are female fronted, actually ties in well with the birth of the previously mentioned ReBalance project launched by Festival Republic.
These musicians are not only attracting astounded reactions from critics and serious interest in the industry, but importantly, there is a genuine wealth of warmth for them from fandom and friendship. This mutual generosity is what audiences need right now in the greed and hate/war age: STARS so entertaining that you grin, and forget the world on the news. Songs so big that they haunt your brain. These ART-ists may be young, but even music lovers who have "seen it all before" realise that they haven't. Guitar music hasn't been this classic or credible in YEARS. Images: Yorkshire brings it down south (above, Bang Bang Romeo "Searing and soulful blues tinged Rock 'n' Roll" NME. below; The Blinders "the hottest new band in the UK." Louderthanwar)
Bringing Reading Festival's rhythm n blues roots round full circle, there is something very positive pulsing through the punky britpunk anti scene in threatened small venues. It's a mates thing. Down the front at each other’s gigs, word of mouth recommending their peers. Spawning a whole new force of documentarians that support and follow them. In short, taking DIY to new levels of collaborative joy. People who are in it for the music, despite the mainstream media largely convinced that "its all over for guitar music". This line up youthfully and defiantly disputes that. Seriously take a look at the bill that the Jack Rocks This Feeling stage is bringing. So strong (and seriously important to our entertainment industry) that this article has been updated to add the following poster now that it has been announced.
Here are a load of names that you can leave Reading Festival with, earworms in your head and spirits lifted, then see them again at a local venue. Get your new favourites here:
The above are so excited to be playing a festival most of them are usually in the crowd for, that they will explode like a firework display. They always do, which means that wherever they play gets crowded by those in the know, through word of mouth. This attracts the inquisitive, some who later get on social networks wondering why the hell they haven't heard of these bands before. Support your new music writers, photographers and film makers that go to gigs. Pick a name from the above, find them online, follow the thread back, and get involved with the most authentic, DIY, britpunk movement in decades. It is SO not over for young guitar music!
Pay close attention, also, to BBC Introducing Stage which showcases 30 Ones To Watch this year including ArtBeat faves from this tale, Too Many Ts, as well as Liverpool’s essential viewing, Queen Zee & The Sasstones. As BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens says: “Reading and Leeds is a huge deal for music fans and playing it is an even bigger deal. BBC Music Introducing is a really exciting part of the festival now, showcasing new talent that’s breaking through and championed by the shows that nominate them to play. You will see something new and awesome every time you stop by!”
M O S E S - Undeniable stars of our ArtBeatFest last Spring – are about to be one of the must-not-miss moments of the weekend.
To say that TheZineUK team are biased, obsessed and delighted – simultaneously - is an understatement.
In a world so unreal that a deranged oompaloompa or two, ending our days, is a distinct possibility, this is a band that lift your spirits higher than the moon.
M O S E S pulse positivity; They radiate unity, love, excitement and laughter – sacrifcing no riffs, licks, beats, anthems, energy or charisma in the process. Prepare to jump around involuntarily. BBC Introducing stage Reading on Friday 25th August and Leeds on Saturday 26th August.
We were at Reading Festival, with 2016 BBC Introducing Stage headliners, Coquin Migale, and End Of The Trail Records. It really is something else to see an amazing band you highly rate, outside of their intimate venue environs, wowing and winning a whole new fan base. In the new multi media age, with gig going new music sites pipping the mainstream print titles to the most exciting new movements, BBC Introducing has become a key nationwide scouted, landmark step for any artist, so, taking an even bigger one, this year are: Friday: Reading/Saturday: Leeds Touts, The Golden Age Of TV, Scott Quinn, Brooke Bentham, Sugarmen, Rale, Phundo, Art, Plaza, Olly Chamberlain. Friday: Leeds/Sunday: Reading Honey Lung, Queen Zee & The Sasstones, Ginger Snaps, Mosa Wild, Penguin, Alibi, Chroma, Low Island, Anna Straker Saturday: Reading/Sunday: Leeds Island, Ider, Playing House, Cassia, Too Many T's, Will Sin For Love, Verschieden, Dan Stock, Soeur
With 460,000+ tracks uploaded and 170,000 artists registered since its 2007 launch, BBC Introducing propels emerging artists onto the national stage through BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2, 6 Music, Radio 3, Asian Network and World Service.Providing broadcast opportunities on television/online. There are opportunities to perform at major festivals and showcases. Previous alumni receiving early career support include Florence and The Machine, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Slaves, Jack Garratt, Jake Bugg, Rae Morris, James Bay, Izzy Bizu and George Ezra. Hence this preview feeling that this year is particularly special on the new artists front, when it comes to following in such footsteps.
Local (to some of our team, anyway) South East London artist, RAY BLK (pictured) is new year's BBC Sound of 2017 winner. "It's important to stand for something", she says, and will do so on the NME/BBC Radio 1 Stage on Friday 25th August in Reading and Sunday 27th August in Leeds.
It feels like we are turning a corner with so much fresh fabness to retain the UK's global reputation as an entertainment industry and talent power house.
It didn't look so bright from the outside earlier this year. In February 2017, the New York Post caught the TV coverage of The Brits and was compelled to write an article on the mainstream; “British Music Really Sucks Right Now”. TheZineUK thanked the journalist for noticing what was already a conversation in small music bars between fans.
We did a responding article. To the journalist’s credit, after seeing a video by one of the new names in our story (and playing This Feeling Jack Rocks stage), he was ecstatically pleased with what the future may bring. No way did we think that the band would be appearing at Reading Festival, a life goal gig for anybody. They will appear alongside some of the biggest names in music. Early faith shown in them by their supporters, already repaid and bolstering our opinion that British Music Really Rocks Right Now.
A classic year in entertainment, whether it’s youth power’s challenge to corrupt political establishment from the likes of Kate Tempest and Stormzy, or Jeremy Corbyn being greeted like a Glastonbury headliner across the land by people power. In this “I Was There” era. If you are Doctor Who, and a woman, this is a year you’d set the TARDIS for to be at Leeds and (especially) Reading Festivals!
Got your tickets yet? leedsfestival.com/tickets or readingfestival.com/tickets noting that these events - day and weekend tickets - annually sell out in advance, so don't wait too long. Fullest line up info at the sites.
As you were.
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