Reading & Leeds Festival Announce First Wave Of Acts

Despite the elongated delay and obvious lack of female acts on the initial line-up, Reading and Leeds Festival have finally released their first wave of acts set to ascend onto Richfield Avenue and Bramham Park this August bank holiday weekend.

The weekends headliners include the likes of Stormzy, Liam Gallagher and Rage Against The Machine. Descent names perfectly capable to fill the prestigious headlining sport across the three days, it seems 2/3 of the mentioned were predicted. With Stormy having headlined Glastonbury just last year and album ‘Heavy Is The Head’ having dropped recently, the British born rapper fits the bill given the widening of genres across the festival in recent years. However, it is the Sunday artist Rage Against The Machine who have caused a stir amongst the younger generation, who evidently have forgotten that Reading and Leeds started out as a predominantly rock heavy festival.

Looking further down the line-up poster, it’s evident to see the lack of females talent being overlooked once more and not being represented in the slightest. Whilst names including Mabel, Bloxx and Lady Leshurr make up the 3 out of the 18 acts that add up to generate the top half of the main stage line-up thus far, going further down the poster the situation gets worse as the male dominated landscape of artists continues.

It seems apart from the obvious reasons stated, many festival punters of Reading and Leeds are feeling let down by the first wave of artists announced for the festival this year. Whilst named outside of the headliners from Two Door Cinema Club, IDLES and the return of AJ Tracey are pleasing the minority, for the majority of festival goers the initial wave of artists set to play Reading and Leeds 2020 have left the bucket hat wearers and Strongbow Dark Fruit drinkers feeling disappointed.