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2021 Lineup


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12 hours ago, Jonathan Jonathan said:

Confused how everyone is so confused. They’re almost certainly not next to each other because I highly doubt they said Easy and West because by that standard they’re both the same orientation. They would just say left and right if that were the case.

 

 

one will be where the main stage currently is. One will probably be near where the radio one tent was, although probably all more on the flat. Entrances, toilets etc. Will probably be shuffled a bit, but that’s probably the least of their problems.

D’ou completely twisted your post wrong in my mind. 
 

yup if they were side by side at Reading at least they would be North and South

Edited by Benj
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Just now, VCK said:

there are plenty of festivals where you can get your fill of female acts. Vote with your feet.

I know there are plenty of festivals I can go to. Reading is my local and there is a genuine issue though with gender imbalance and has been for a long time now. I am campaigning and standing by what I believe in. If I “vote with my feet” we are never going to have change, the only way to get change is to speak up and actively lobby for it (akin to the BLM protests).

It’s not the only issue with R&L though. Ever since it’s become a rap and grime festivals the crowd has just become a lot worse, violent, unfriendly, too drugged up to care about anyone else, to be honest my last time at the festival the atmosphere was so unpleasant compared to other festivals I’ve been to. The whole festival needs a marketing shift in my opinion to make it a better and more diverse place.

 

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9 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

I know there are plenty of festivals I can go to. Reading is my local and there is a genuine issue though with gender imbalance and has been for a long time now. I am campaigning and standing by what I believe in. If I “vote with my feet” we are never going to have change, the only way to get change is to speak up and actively lobby for it (akin to the BLM protests).

It’s not the only issue with R&L though. Ever since it’s become a rap and grime festivals the crowd has just become a lot worse, violent, unfriendly, too drugged up to care about anyone else, to be honest my last time at the festival the atmosphere was so unpleasant compared to other festivals I’ve been to. The whole festival needs a marketing shift in my opinion to make it a better and more diverse place.

 

The difference is that the BLM protests are against unarmed black people being murdered by police. Things that actually affect and ruin people's lives. The issue here, really, is that some rich and successful female artists haven't been booked to play one music festival. There is no comparison.

Leeds is my local festival but if the line-up isn't to my taste I just don't go. Regarding your second paragraph, Reading and Leeds have always had rough crowds, and by all accounts things aren't as bad as they were in the 00s when there were riots every year. And is including rap and grime not making the festival more diverse? Two genres where there are a lot more black artists than white, and there is even a black artist headlining this year, which rarely happens at the festival as it is. It's pretty clear that the organisers aren't intent on making the festival a white male sausage fest.

Edited by VCK
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18 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

It’s just laziness to be honest. I’m interested to see what happens when other festivals announce their line ups for this year and whether they manage to get female bookings or not; will give us a much better representation of who was available on the market.

But with such a vast pool of strong female artists who could have played at headline/sub level, it definitely feels like they haven’t tried their hardest to push for female representation as you say.

I mean we together on here have almost single handedly curated a fully female festival. The pool for headliners is small I understand that so booking one or two reduces it a lot, but giving other female artists the platform of a decent slot to build off of increases the amount of female headliners that could be booked. If Dua is elsewhere fair enough i get that, if they tried to get Billie and Haim fair enough (although how hard they tried is another matter), and yeah maybe Florence doesn't fit the demographic anymore, but at least fill subs with bands that would play slightly lower in a normal year. I would hope to see Pale Waves third down i think they could do that, especially as 3rd this year is basically 5th or 6th down. 

But i do agree in the sense of maybe a lot are taking time away from music. A mate mentioned Lana Del Rey, I'm not sure if she fits the festival, but if there was any year to try new stuff it was the year with 6 headliners

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4 minutes ago, Gerard the Fab said:

I mean we together on here have almost single handedly curated a fully female festival. The pool for headliners is small I understand that so booking one or two reduces it a lot, but giving other female artists the platform of a decent slot to build off of increases the amount of female headliners that could be booked. If Dua is elsewhere fair enough i get that, if they tried to get Billie and Haim fair enough (although how hard they tried is another matter), and yeah maybe Florence doesn't fit the demographic anymore, but at least fill subs with bands that would play slightly lower in a normal year. I would hope to see Pale Waves third down i think they could do that, especially as 3rd this year is basically 5th or 6th down. 

But i do agree in the sense of maybe a lot are taking time away from music. A mate mentioned Lana Del Rey, I'm not sure if she fits the festival, but if there was any year to try new stuff it was the year with 6 headliners

Keep in mind that they've announced a mere handful of artists so it's hard to judge either way. Maybe the likes of Wolf Alice and Pale Waves will appear in the next announcement.

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Reading could easily book either a female headliner or two each year. Or a couple of female subs or a female R1 headliner.

Can someone give me a legitimate reason why AJ Tracey has gone

2021: expected sub or third

2020: R1 headliner

2019:mid MS

2018: 1xtra headliner

2017: 3rd down 1xtra

Too me this reeks of he draws a crowd and we can't be fucked to push the boat out

 

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10 minutes ago, VCK said:

Keep in mind that they've announced a mere handful of artists so it's hard to judge either way. Maybe the likes of Wolf Alice and Pale Waves will appear in the next announcement.

With catfish headlining wolf alice are a headline act, not a sub. So I’m confident they won’t appear. Pale waves, perhaps more likely but still no confidence in that either.

 

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6 minutes ago, VCK said:

Keep in mind that they've announced a mere handful of artists so it's hard to judge either way. Maybe the likes of Wolf Alice and Pale Waves will appear in the next announcement.

I mean yeah i would hope to see them but putting Wolf Alice behind Capaldi, AJ Tracey, DaBaby pisses me off. the latter two is a couple of men strolling around stage saying a few words every couple of minutes while a DJ shouts over a backing track. It's all talk no actual singing, no talent, its talking fast over a pre set beat and most of that genre don't even sing most of the words live, they rely on a backing track and the crowd singing along. Take Migos in 2017, they came out with 10 minutes left of their set and even then it was only 2 of the 3, people like that could not give two flying shits about the festival, artists like Wolf Alice and Pale Waves and Haim etc rely on festivals to get their music out to the demographic of the festival because all Radio 1 plays now is grime dross and pop

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5 minutes ago, Gerard the Fab said:

Reading could easily book either a female headliner or two each year. Or a couple of female subs or a female R1 headliner.

Can someone give me a legitimate reason why AJ Tracey has gone

2021: expected sub or third

2020: R1 headliner

2019:mid MS

2018: 1xtra headliner

2017: 3rd down 1xtra

Too me this reeks of he draws a crowd and we can't be fucked to push the boat out

 

They are just lazy and going with the safe options rather than experimenting with a new and exciting diverse line up. Exact reason they’ve brought back post malone.

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3 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

With catfish headlining wolf alice are a headline act, not a sub. So I’m confident they won’t appear. Pale waves, perhaps more likely but still no confidence in that either.

 

Catfish have the festival and arena headlining experience that Wolf Alice don't (yet) have. Plus Catfish have landed a number one album while Wolf Alice haven't (yet). I'd say Catfish are the bigger of the two. Not the most inspiring of bookings, granted, but they are a big name.

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1 minute ago, FestivalJamie said:

They are just lazy and going with the safe options rather than experimenting with a new and exciting diverse line up. Exact reason they’ve brought back post malone.

I love the festival, I can walk there and have been going for 5 years, but if uninspiring bookings like that continue to be picked over exciting artists (male or female) that we dont see every single fucking year then I'm just going to look elswhere and give up. I know I'm only one person but its just pathetic

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2 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

There’s absolutely no way wolf alice are appearing 3rd down on the main stage or even subbing. They are a headline act with this year’s line up, so it’s not going to happen.

I sort of agree with @VCK here, they don't have the experience. Haim could absoloutely smash it but Wolf Alice should be subbing at least

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2 minutes ago, Gerard the Fab said:

I mean yeah i would hope to see them but putting Wolf Alice behind Capaldi, AJ Tracey, DaBaby pisses me off. the latter two is a couple of men strolling around stage saying a few words every couple of minutes while a DJ shouts over a backing track. It's all talk no actual singing, no talent, its talking fast over a pre set beat and most of that genre don't even sing most of the words live, they rely on a backing track and the crowd singing along. Take Migos in 2017, they came out with 10 minutes left of their set and even then it was only 2 of the 3, people like that could not give two flying shits about the festival, artists like Wolf Alice and Pale Waves and Haim etc rely on festivals to get their music out to the demographic of the festival because all Radio 1 plays now is grime dross and pop

Your argument seems to be "I prefer X to Y, so X should be higher on the line up than Y". I remember feeling the same when they booked The Killers to sub over QOTSA in 2005. In retrospect, The Killers were a bigger draw than QOTSA (and always have been, really) so that's why they got the higher placing.

There are six sub slots and Wolf Alice could easily fill one of them, maybe before QOTSA.

Also rapping does require quite a bit of talent. Listen to some of the classic artists from the 80s and 90s. Capaldi is shite though, and is more known for his "funny" social media posts, I'll give you that.

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6 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

There’s absolutely no way wolf alice are appearing 3rd down on the main stage or even subbing. They are a headline act with this year’s line up, so it’s not going to happen.

Wolf Alice are one of my favourite bands but I disagree with this. I think they're a similar size to Two Door Cinema Club and if they play this year there'll be subbing

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3 minutes ago, VCK said:

Your argument seems to be "I prefer X to Y, so X should be higher on the line up than Y". I remember feeling the same when they booked The Killers to sub over QOTSA in 2005. In retrospect, The Killers were a bigger draw than QOTSA (and always have been, really) so that's why they got the higher placing.

There are six sub slots and Wolf Alice could easily fill one of them, maybe before QOTSA.

Also rapping does require quite a bit of talent. Listen to some of the classic artists from the 80s and 90s. Capaldi is shite though, and is more known for his "funny" social media posts, I'll give you that.

No I mean I like Dave and Stormzy because theres just something different about them. And i like 80s and 90s rap, your Public Enemy etc. But the people ive mentioned are unlike that, AJ Tracey and DaBaby are not like that, its like i said backing tracks. And yes Wolf Alice could sub Queens, but from the looks of it it will be Libertines and Gerry Cinnamon, again a couple of dull bookings

Iv'e said i like Capaldi, but his music is not that that i want to hear at Reading

Edited by Gerard the Fab
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2 minutes ago, Andre91 said:

People go on about the gender balance at R&L every year but I don’t think enough people praise them for the racial diversity they have in their lineups year on year. That really is something worthy of more praise than it gets. 

Why can’t we have both?

I said to my mum that stormzy is a good headline booking because it brings racial diversity in challenging times and a lot of young people look up to him, but similarly a lot of young people look up to female artists and there’s no reason why we can’t achieve diversity in gender and race here, as well as musical talent.

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To me, wolf alice are a headline in this pool, or at least co-headline with catfish. I saw them headline truck last year and they put on a better show than I’ve ever seen catfish do before. It was really awesome.

Maybe they will be offered a sub position, but I think it’s unlikely given the current line up position, but if they are offered 3rd down I hope they don’t take it as I think that would be a bit insulting to their status and performance quality.

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2 minutes ago, Andre91 said:

People go on about the gender balance at R&L every year but I don’t think enough people praise them for the racial diversity they have in their lineups year on year. That really is something worthy of more praise than it gets. 

Not to open a can of worms here, but if we were to go down the whole privilege discourse route, I'd say Dua Lipa, Haim, Florence, Ellie Rowsell, Billie Eilish and most of the female names bandied about are all white women from middle class backgrounds, while Stormzy is a black man from a working class background so surely he is "lower on the privilege stack" than them, for want of a better phrase.

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5 minutes ago, Andre91 said:

People go on about the gender balance at R&L every year but I don’t think enough people praise them for the racial diversity they have in their lineups year on year. That really is something worthy of more praise than it gets. 

Oh no I agree completely its excellent they can achieve that but surely if they can get racial diversity, they can get gender diversity too?

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10 minutes ago, FestivalJamie said:

Why can’t we have both?

I said to my mum that stormzy is a good headline booking because it brings racial diversity in challenging times and a lot of young people look up to him, but similarly a lot of young people look up to female artists and there’s no reason why we can’t achieve diversity in gender and race here, as well as musical talent.

At no point did I say that we can’t have both, what I’m saying is that we don’t have to ignore one because of the other. 

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11 minutes ago, gfa said:

Haim are never headlining R&L, the crowd would be tiny. Catfish would bring a much bigger crowd in than Wolf Alice too, its sad but its definitely true

Catfish didn't manage to sell out there day at neighbourhood festival in 2020, also not for the 2021 edition. A festival which is only 20k capacity. Quite a big jump to a festival the size of reading and leeds.

I really like Catfish though, so glad they are playing.

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Heres a list of all artists in big positions (top 4 MS, top 3 R1, headlining any other stage) that are racially diverse in the last 5 festivals (not including 2021)

2020: Stormzy, Migos, RATM?, DBE, Slowthai?, RTJ, Headie One, AJ Tracey, Fever 333, Jpegmafia, Danny Brown, M Huncho, Denzel Curry (13)

2019: Anderson Paak, Dave, Fredo, Stefflon Don, Octavian, Not3s (6)

2018: Travis Scott, Nines, Kendrick Lamar, N.E.R.D, Wizkid, Wretch 32, J Hus, AJ Tracey, Mist (9)

2017: Giggs, Torey Lanez, Danny Brown, Bugzy Malone, Flatbush Zombies (5)

2016: BBK, Asap Rocky, Nas, DJ EZ, Wiley Kano, Stormzy (6)

 

And in the same years, this is the female acts in the same positions.

2020: Girl in Red, Mahalia, Sports Team (3)

2019: Billie Eilish (played 5th, but on co head day), the Distillers, Stefflon Don, Pvris (4)

2018: Panic (sort of, female touring member), Dua Lipa, Wolf Alice, Annie Mac, Hannah Wants, Kate Nash (6)

2017: Haim, Halsey (2) - quick note, main stage had Pvris and Against the Current as the highest female fronted bands at 6th down

2016: Chvrches (1)

 

Now bare in mind that there are 33 slots here. That means the rest are filled by white males. In 2016, 26 of the top spots where white males

Edited by Gerard the Fab
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