Mon the Reading
Reading festival came around fast this year for some reason, it was as if the summer had only just begun, the sun was out and thousands of teenagers and others having just received their exam results headed to the UK's biggest festival. Reading & Leeds in the UK has always been seen as a right of passage, that last lost weekend before heading off to college or work or whatever it might be other than heading back to school….
The festival goers seemed to be getting younger but fear it’s more that we are getting that bit older. Nonetheless the one thing that sets Reading & Leeds apart is that the majority of the people heading to the three day event are all there for the same reason and that’s to see live music.
This years line up saw the return of Biffy Clyro as Sunday headliners and having worked with the band for many years it really was a wonderful thing to see, from seeing them play nearly every stage across the event over the past 15 or so years to again headline the festival was a real honor and proud moment, there’s not another band out there that deserves as much as they have managed to achieve over the past 15 years. Seven albums under their belts and headlining one of the most prestigious UK festivals can’t be bad : ) Mon the Biff!
We got to catch up with a lot of other friends over the weekend including Pete Griffin playing with Giraffe Tongue Orchestra on the Pit stage on Saturday as well as seeing the guys from and old friends in Eagles of Death Metal, we haven’t seen them since the horrific incident last November in Paris so was really an emotional catch up. On Sunday we also caught up with the lads from Rat Boy being local lads it was great to see them fill the NME tent late afternoon at the event. We got to hang out and catch up with old friends from The 1975 and other tour managers, production managers and backline technicians.
Biff’s headline set was a true spectacular with lasers and fireworks an incredibly designed set we got to see go up and down in production rehearsals earlier in the week, so we were a little lucky we got to see the set a couple of times last week.
If you live in the UK or have a UK IP address you can watch the full set from Biffy Clyro HERE on the BBC iPlayer.
You can also pre-order tickets for Biffy Clyro's UK arena tour later in the year just click HERE the go on sale to the general public on Friday 2nd September.
The set list was as follows:
Wolves Of Winter
Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies
Sounds Like Balloons
Biblical
57
Friends And Enemies
Folding Stars
In The Name Of The Wee Man
Who's Got a Match?
Bubbles
Howl
Black Chandelier
That Golden Rule
Re-arrange
Machines
The Captain
Mountains
9/15ths
Animal Style
Many Of Horror
Stingin' Belle