In recent years, there has been fairly slim pickings in terms of traditional rock bands (and even less so in terms of metal bands) on the bill at Reading and Leeds Festivals. This years lineup had already shown some signs of reversing this with the likes of Green Day and Biffy Clyro as headliners, plus bands such as Reading / Leeds regulars Deftones, Bring Me The Horizon, System Of A Down, Fall Out Boy, While She Sleeps, Modestep and Tomahawk. Well, they’ve taken this solid grounding and given it a fairly violent shove into the category marked “impressive…most impressive”.
Two things have happened. First, some awesome new bands have been added to the line up for Reading and Leeds 2013. Secondly, a couple of the bands originally announced have been promoted to appear on the main stage. Lets’ take a look at the new additions first: Friday at Reading and Sunday at Leeds quite frankly won’t know what’s hit them because Skindred have joined the party. Fresh from flattening Donington and Knebworth numerous times over the last few years, it’s now the turn of Reading and Leeds to experience the live power of Skindred’s unique ragga metal sound. We’d put the house on Skindred absolutely smashing this.
Saturday at Reading / Sunday at Leeds features the addition to the main stage of the two of the UK’s best young rock bands over the last couple of years – Welsh party rockers The Blackout and Lower Than Atlantis, who are just wrapping up their biggest UK headline tour to date so far. Expect good things from both bands.
Sunday at Reading / Friday at Leeds will see US pop punk band We Are The In Crowd build on the excellent last twelve months the band has had including a very successful tour with Young Guns and Your Demise, but what Rocksins are super excited about is that Bury Tomorrow will be opening the main stage on this day. Also appearing at Download, Bury Tomorrow are going great guns off the back of their album The Union Of Crowns and it will be fascinating to see how they handle their biggest festival appearance so far.
Now, about those promoted bands. One of the UK’s most promising metal bands over the last twelve months, While She Sleeps have been given the honour of kicking off the main stage at Reading on the Friday and Leeds on the Sunday. We’d put good odds on songs like This Is The Six and Our Courage, Our Cancer turning the Reading arena into a wasteland (at least for those up early enough to see them). Fellow Brits, Mallory Knox put their stamp on the UK album chart at the start of the year with their brand of home grown rock and their chart exploits, plus their highly successful tour with Don Broco has seem them awarded the duty of opening the main stage at Reading Saturday & Leeds Sunday. Lastly, dubstep rockers Modestep have seen themselves upgraded to the Radio One/NME stage at Reading on the Saturday and Leeds on the Sunday. Look for them to bring down the tent with the likes of Sunlight and Show Me A Sign.
Last but certainly not least, a great collection of bands have been announced for the Lock Up stage. Enter Shikari will be debuting their new project Shikari Sound System in a headline slot at the Lock Up stage, while Alkaline Trio and Mike Patton’s Tomahawk take the other two headline slots on this stage. Then you have the likes of Japanese dance metallers Crossfaith, the wonderful ambient craziness of And So I Watch You From Afar, Welsh alt-metal veterans Funeral For A Friend, the resurgent Gallows, rising stars Heaven’s Basement, hardcore legends Sick Of It All, The Bronx and Cerebral Ballzy just to name a few!
So there we have it, pretty exciting stuff for the UK’s annual August bank holiday weekend festival double header. We’re sure Bury Tomorrow and While She Sleeps will be going all out to out-do each other, and one of the big questions is will Reading and Leeds join Donington and Knebworth in doing the Newport Helicopter during Skindred’s set? You’ll have to buy a ticket to one of the festivals to find out! For the latest in UK rock & metal festival news, please keep checking back with Rocksins.com on a regular basis.
