Festival Review: Reading Festival 2021
Walking through the gates of Reading Festival felt almost nostalgic; even though we only missed out on one year of the musical giant, it felt as if it had been an age since we last slid on the wristbands, jumped into mosh pits and witnessed some truly iconic bands new and old play their hearts out in the August heat!
It was glaringly obvious that things were slightly different to previous years, festival goers were still a bit hesitant to fully embrace the Reading attitude, keeping their distance from fellow music-heads; a handful of masks were still apparent! A few small reminders of what was happening on the other side of those festival walls.
Kicking off the festival antics on friday were special guests Nothing But Thieves, whose eclectic mixture of hard rocking bangers and sultry alt ballads truly got the festival off to an amazing start! On the other side of the arena, it was the first of many ‘secret’ sets to garnish this weekend, the loveable guys in Don Broco strutted on stage to be greeted by a packed tent, genuinely could not fit another single person in! Playing a host of their newer singles including ‘Gumshield’ and ‘Manchester Reds No.1 Fan’ made the audience explode with excitement and screams!
Slightly later on, Wargasm had taken to the stage and were ready to destroy The Lock-Up, singles like ‘SPIT’ and ‘PYRO PYRO’ dragged in new and old fans, by the end there wasn’t one person in the tent not getting involved in the countless mosh pits!
As we have already mentioned this weekend was chock full of ‘secret’ sets, so who better to bring a bit of that Reading spirit than the ever energetic Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes; blasting through a tight 40 minute set of songs new and old! From standing atop the crowd and bellowing the lyrics to ‘My Town’ to swaggering around the stage with guests such as Cassyette and Lynx, Frank Carter brought a serious amount of stage presence and flair to his performance!
The punk rock duo Nova Twins set the stage alight with their genre bending tunes, their entire set went by in a whirlwind of raw energy, piercing electronics and enough bass to blast a whole in the side of the festival walls!
Yonaka are quickly becoming such a staple in the music and festival scene; guitar melting solo’s, catchy badass lyrics all affront a crudely spray painted backdrop which looked amazing with the flashes of red and blue lights bouncing behind! Frontwoman Teresa strutting back and forth staring the whole front row down as she screamed out ‘Greedy’ and the classic ‘FWTB’!
A highly anticipated set was from the mind-boggling Ashnikko, whose combination of blasting electronic beats and upbeat addicting choruses packed out The Lock-Up as the sun began to set. A truly memorable performance from the blue haired firecracker, ‘STUPID’ and ‘Slumber Party’ were songs that you almost couldn’t hear Ash’s voice over the volume of the crowd screaming back to her!
As the night came to a close, what better way to do it then with the king of grime; Stormzy! The Rap behemoth absolutely stole the show with a impressive 21 song set, including a few special guests in the form of Dave, Tion Wayne and Russ Millions, which as you can guess went down a treat with the thousands of festival goers as he closed the first night out; a mass amount of fireworks and confetti cannons truly helped secure this as a fantastic first headline show for the weekend.
A large majority of festival attendees were probably nursing a hangover on the Saturday but newcomers NOISY were here to make them all forget about that, their beat heavy songs and off the cuff lyrics quickly filled up the Dance stage! Punk-rock's new shining star Kennyhoopla got the whole tent jumping as if he was a veteran at this; it was almost a headliner performance, next year we expect him to be much higher on the lineup!!
Bands like Bob Vylan, Badflower and Loathe took the classic rock and roll that Reading is famous for and turned it up to 11; mosh pits, crowd surfing and face melting guitar riffs that seemed to drift across the whole arena; truly stellar sets by all 3 bands!
City Morgue’s set was the definition of crazy; fast hard hitting beats, screamed rap lyrics and even a slipknot breakdown halfway through to really get the crowd going!
A quick trip over to the Radio 1 Xtra tent to witness one of the UK’s finest Tion Wayne, by the time we wandered over, you could barely squeeze a toe into the tent let alone another person! Tion’s set went off without a hitch, his grime/drill bangers had the whole crowd bouncing and singing back to him!
Indie-rock trio Calva Louise closed out the BBC introducing stage this evening, the shredding guitars and mesmerizing vocals drew in a decent crowd for these Reading newbies!
With the loss of Fever 333 and Creeper off the lineup because of Covid restrictions, the fabulous Waterparks took up the mantle and finished off the day at The Pit stage, frontman Awsten’’s incredible multi-colored hair dancing in the spotlights!
At this point it was time for Post Malone’s headline slot on the mainstage, a truly phenomenal performance filled with flames, fireworks and downing of multiple beers! Classics like ‘Circles’ and ‘Sunflower’ made the whole crowd feel warm inside but with an obvious lack of new music in the setlist apart from new single ‘Motley Crew’ this evenings set felt slightly like a re-run of his 2019 headline performance; nevertheless a top tier set from the tattooed sweetheart!
Sunday was definitely a slower day for most people, the time it has been since we last had a festival of this magnitude, people were obviously exhausted on the last day! Saying that there was still enough avid music fans ready to get their groove on; Youtube-superstar KSI and rock outfit The Hunna put on some incredible sets, definitely waking everyone up and getting them in the mood for the rest of the day!
Baby Queen and Bloxx continued that same energy across the field in the Festival Republic stage, Baby Queen jumping around the stage with the energy of a toddler that has just had some chocolate! Whereas Bloxx ripped up the floorboards with their fun indie-rock anthems, less moshpits and more sea’s of dancing fans.
A quick ‘secret’ set from rap newcomer Pa Salieu on the BBC introducing stage, his deep voice gliding majestically over the booming beats and ass-shaking bass, a huge crowd turned up for Pa this afternoon; after winning the BBC’s Sound of 2021 award you can tell this guy is absolutely about to blow up!
Another act that had to cancel at the last minute was Machine Gun Kelly, which was very disappointing for a mass of fans; thankfully his good friend and past collaborator Yungblud graciously filled his mainstage slot and did it with ease! A giant red rubber duck, countless flame cannons and some of the catchiest pop-rock tunes we heard all weekend; the lipstick wearing madman took the mainstage in his stride!
A slightly quieter set but no less impressive was from Holly Humberstone, a soulful singer/songwriter, who seemed to play every instrument there as during her set; this chilled and mellow set was the perfect way to close out the evening and festival!
A lot of people were very sceptical about how Reading Festival would go after the past eighteen months, but with enough lateral flow tests to sink a ship and an enormous range of acts over the three days; we can confirm Reading was a success despite its doubters! No doubt Reading 2022 will be back to its former glory and will be bigger and better than ever before!
Words and Photography Joe Dick