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2021 Lineup


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8 hours ago, IanF said:

There will be five bands on each main stage, and they will play on a rotational basis. So band on Main Stage West opens, then band on Main Stage East, then the next band on Main Stage West, all the way up to the Main East headliners (Stormzy, Post and Liam)

There will be no NME, Pit, Dance, Festival Republic or BBC Introducing Stages, but there will be a third stage for smaller acts, and it'll be open air. Think something similar to the Park at Glastonbury.

I believe this is only a temporary measure in regards to the pandemic and 2022 will see the festival resume normal service, as it were.

Expect a second announcement around September. With a few interesting names.

I am sorry but where has this 'info' even come from? 

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18 minutes ago, stanh said:

yeah, completely agree it is about talent, and of course popularity, but taking a 'risk' or whatever on some more female names, if they are established or up and coming would be such a nice breath of fresh air for the festival, and i think even in their defence would save them from getting any further backlash online and in the media

The problem is they aren’t arsed about online backlash, they just want to make as much money possible by spending as little as possible 

this whole debate is certainly needed however it shouldn’t be talked about without facts. who knows what goes on in negotiations unless you are there, obviously promotors should be seen to be making a real effort in equality on gender and diversity on line ups but all the hate being thrown towards them could may well be unnecessary.

 

whos to say acts like Haim, Florence, Billie weren’t asked to headline and due to them being so vocal and passionate about the conversation turned it down and didn’t want to be associated  with the festival, acts likes Dua Lipa, Wolf Alice etc could be being lined up for the year after something’s got to give acts need to come out and put the issue to bed maybe more transparency is needed by both parties because at the minute it’s just becoming fashionable to label festival republic as sexist and that isn’t going to help the acts or the festivals. it will just create more division 

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8 hours ago, JSmurphy said:

That'd be a real shame if true. I've seen some fantastic sets in The Pit and Festival Republic in recent years. 

I hope it isn't true.

I'd make that a reduction from around 80 acts a day to probably 20-25ish. That'd be embarrassing. 

 

Thing is with The Pit, it might be a case purely of filling it. Download's Avalanche stage isn't great and SD might have taken everything else around. Refused and Alkaline Trio for eg weren't available this year.

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4 minutes ago, Gerard the Fab said:

All the more fun

Joking, yeah and if this 3 stage thing is true it’ll be even worse

You already do loads of walking across that weekend. Now with two main stages the step counter on my phone is gonna break. I can't wait for the stampede though between the two of them. It will be a good sight!

Edited by Sam Y
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4 minutes ago, Sam Y said:

You already do loads of walking across that weekend. Now with two main stages the step counter on my phone is gonna break. I can't wait for the stampede though between the two of them. It will be a good sight!

Past couple of years I have barely done any, just camped at a spot in front of the MS, only went to see Dinosaur Pile Up and the Amazons in different stages. I went down the front for Blossoms, the Wombats and SWMRS(yuck) and that’s about it

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My own two cents on the gender thing. I’m neither here nor there on it. I think saying that there aren’t enough talented women is stupid. The bigger problems are sexism in the industry both in terms of people wanting to book female acts and the ability for female acts to gain as prominent popularity in a genre like rock. I’m not saying there aren’t good female rockers but the industry of which Reading is a part is most certainly limiting.

 

on the other hand I can see why Reading may struggle to book headline women. There’s a lot of fucking amazing female artists in the game that could make killer undercards but when it comes to headliners the choice is sadly pretty slim. Realistically I think Paramore, Billie Eilish, and Dua Lipa are the main acts that could headline on a typically single main stage year. There’s definitely a bigger prominence of women in the pop industry, but much of the pop industry is out of place at Reading. Dua Lipa just about gets away with it since she’s British and especially popular with the young, but most other big pop stars (eg. Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift) would be much more unpopular and controversial choices for a ‘rock’ festival. I saw a bunch of people ranting on Twitter yesterday (my mistake for being on twitter) throwing out random female names but not thinking in the slightest. Literally saw people say like Clairo and Pale Waves who couldn’t even headline sub the radio one stage. Like I want someone to name five potential suitable female headliners outside of Dua, Paramore, Billie. Like I said you could get an amazing undercard and the subs could be great but I just don’t think there’s much headline level yet.
 

 

On the other hand I do think they’re should’ve booked more this year. Six headliners is a chance to take a ‘risk’ and given the backlash earlier this year it’s insane to me they didn’t. Someone like Haim definitely could’ve been more in contention and if they wanted to explore these sort of avenues it would’ve been a good year to.

Edited by Jonathan Jonathan
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6 minutes ago, Jonathan Jonathan said:

My own two cents on the gender thing. I’m neither here nor there on it. I think saying that there aren’t enough talented women is stupid. The bigger problems are sexism in the industry both in terms of people wanting to book female acts and the ability for female acts to gain as prominent popularity in a genre like rock. I’m not saying there aren’t good female rockers but the industry of which Reading is a part is most certainly limiting.

 

on the other hand I can see why Reading may struggle to book headline women. There’s a lot of fucking amazing female artists in the game that could make killer undercards but when it comes to headliners the choice is sadly pretty slim. Realistically I think Paramore, Billie Eilish, and Dua Lipa are the main acts that could headline on a typically single main stage year. There’s definitely a bigger prominence of women in the pop industry, but much of the pop industry is out of place at Reading. Dua Lipa just about gets away with it since she’s British and especially popular with the young, but most other big pop stars (eg. Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift) would be much more unpopular and controversial choices for a ‘rock’ festival. I saw a bunch of people ranting on Twitter yesterday (my mistake for being on twitter) throwing out random female names but not thinking in the slightest. Literally saw people say like Clairo and Pale Waves who couldn’t even headline sub the radio one stage. Like I want someone to name five potential suitable female headliners outside of Dua, Paramore, Billie. Like I said you could get an amazing undercard and the subs could be great but I just don’t think there’s much headline level yet.
 

 

On the other hand I do think they’re should’ve booked more this year. Six headliners is a chance to take a ‘risk’ and given the backlash earlier this year it’s insane to me they didn’t. Someone like Haim definitely could’ve been more in contention and if they wanted to explore these sort of avenues it would’ve been a good year to.

Florence and the Machine

Lizzo

Wolf Alice

Cardi B

the xx

And Haim like you said 

Edited by Gerard the Fab
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15 minutes ago, Gerard the Fab said:

Florence and the Machine

Lizzo

Wolf Alice

Cardi B

the xx

And Haim like you said 

I don’t think Lizzo could headline even on a six headline slot year. She has like three bigs songs and whilst I know she’s been around a while I feel it’s too soon for her to headline.

 

Is Cardi B really a Reading type act? I’m sure she’d be fine but I think it’d get a lot of backlash and don’t think she’d be a ticket shifter.

 

Wolf Alice are fucking great and I reckon could sub but think you’d get a lot of people saying ‘who?’ if they headlined. I’d love them but even compared to C&TBM they’re like a third of the size if we’re going by Spotify monthly listeners and streams on top songs. Obviously Spotify isn’t a perfect system but it’s a decent indicator

 

Florence could do it. Personally I feel she wouldn’t fit Reading nowadays but I also have a history of under guessing her popularity and will trust everyone else saying she’d fit.

 

Haim and XX could probably do it with six headliners. Probs wouldn’t call the XX a female act fully though given that Romy and Oliver both sing and Jamie’s pretty prominent.

 

 

the name five thing was kind of rhetorical. My point is that there’s a lot more dispute over this than a more conservative Reading booking like Foos, QotSA, Rage. Whilst I prefer quite a few of the acts you named these sort of bands are indisputably Reading and the only real reason I’ve seen people give for them not headlining is ‘too old’ or ‘don’t like them.’

Edited by Jonathan Jonathan
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12 minutes ago, Gerard the Fab said:

Florence and the Machine

Lizzo

Wolf Alice

Cardi B

the xx

And Haim like you said 

Yeah, my morals are torn with the whole female headliner thing.

On the one hand I 100% agree with the need to promote and push female artists to the top of the bill.

On the other hand I look at the list of possibilities like the ones you’ve just listed and realise that if any of them get booked I’ll certainly be somewhere else.

Basically, unless the likes of Halestorm, The Distillers,Against Me, L7 or Cultdreams  release album of the year and explode Billie Eilish style I’m unlikely to be watching whichever female headlines.
 

Not that they’d miss me of course, just saying about the likelihood of my personal tastes hitting top spot.

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1 hour ago, stanh said:

Megan Thee Stallion, Dua Lipa, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Wolf Alice, Lorde, Clairo, Charli XCX, King Princess, Ella Mai, Kehlani, Chloe X Halle, Haim, St. Vincent, Rina Sawayama, Empress Of, Kali Uchis, Jorja Smith, Raye, FKA Twigs, Kilo Kish, Kacy Hill, Saweetie, City Girls, Halsey, Becky Hill, etc... All some names which could be booked at the very top of my head, and that I think would go down well, especially with the current crowd that attends Leeds and Reading, granted Billie, Dua etc (Billie especially) are headline level, but there are countless names that could be booked... Really annoying me that in this first announcement these artists have been completely overlooked, especially considering the amount of backlash the 2020 lineup got, I would've liked to have hoped they learnt from that... Hopefully the second announcement has a least some more female representation, as the talent AND fan base are both there.

But 8 artists out of 20 with a female presence were announced.

The festival is actively trying to right its wrongs across the whole lineup and hopefully they continue. But the shitter is that they couldn't get one female headliner in a year where Disclosure and Catfish & the Bottlemen have been given headline slots. Suggesting they book Clairo won't fix that.

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I see where people are coming from, there’s 3 or 4  R&L headline level artists if you book them all in the same year it really depletes the amounts for the next say 3 or 4 years. However I agree with @dentalplan it doesn’t excuse the boring bookings of Post Malone, Disclosure and Catfish and it is a very good time to test the new blood out. I’m hoping the undercard gets a few that have been mentioned, but it’s a tricky one

Edited by Gerard the Fab
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1 hour ago, heartsink said:

The problem is they aren’t arsed about online backlash, they just want to make as much money possible by spending as little as possible 

this whole debate is certainly needed however it shouldn’t be talked about without facts. who knows what goes on in negotiations unless you are there, obviously promotors should be seen to be making a real effort in equality on gender and diversity on line ups but all the hate being thrown towards them could may well be unnecessary.

 

whos to say acts like Haim, Florence, Billie weren’t asked to headline and due to them being so vocal and passionate about the conversation turned it down and didn’t want to be associated  with the festival, acts likes Dua Lipa, Wolf Alice etc could be being lined up for the year after something’s got to give acts need to come out and put the issue to bed maybe more transparency is needed by both parties because at the minute it’s just becoming fashionable to label festival republic as sexist and that isn’t going to help the acts or the festivals. it will just create more division 

Yep, people are just arguing based purely on assumption. Who’s to say Dua and Billie aren’t exclusives elsewhere next year? Who’s to say they didn’t turn down R&L? Like I say, there’s plenty of variables. Maybe the organisers actually do hate women but it’s hard to draw such a conclusion without sufficient evidence.

That said, Florence would have made a great headliner, much better choice than Post or Catfish.

Edited by VCK
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