Looking back at Reading Festivals past...

Last weekend was the August Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, so saw another Reading and Leeds Festival. Now, I have been to Reading Festival (almost) twice, so I thought I'd share my memories from those times!

2011
The reason I said "(almost) twice" is because I only went for one day in 2011. Muse were headlining, and at that point I'd not discovered the joys of festivals and gigs so only decided to go just for that one day. The year being the 10th anniversary year of Muse's second album "Origin of Symmetry", they announced that they will be playing the album live for their Reading and Leeds headline sets - amazing! Then, while moving through the crowd during that set, I bumped into a friend from school (who I didn't realise was there) - what are the chances of that?!

2017
This time I went for the whole three days, and was joined by a friend - thankfully the weather was good throughout and managed to catch some lovely sunsets too!

Now, this being after my PH diagnosis I was mindful of that, and made sure that I kept away from dense crowds, and that I was not rushing around or on my feet for too long - the weather being dry helped with that!

Bastille & Kasabian, and Blossoms & Muse
For me, they were the acts I mainly wanted to see, and they were brilliant! I think for me the highlight of Reading 2017 has to be seeing these guys live! The only complaint here really was that Muse's set clashed with Haim's set - gutted! Also, had to choose between waiting for Kasabian (and thus keeping our spot) or going to see Queens of the Stone Age surprise set... *sigh*

Fangirl...!

One of the things that happens at Reading and Leeds is that bands will do signing sessions. Now, this particular year, both Bastille and Blossoms were due to be at the signing tent - so I (sort of) dragged my friend and we queued for Bastille, only to find that we were too far up the queue to make it! Undeterred, I decided to queue for Blossoms two days later, making sure we were there early enough - we were sitting in the sun for quite a while!. This time we made it, as you can see in the photo! For some reason, I got so nervous as I was heading up to see the band, and just about managed to mutter "I love your songs" to Tom - criiinge! Was so happy afterwards though!

Discovering other bands
There were other bands I wanted to see, like The Amazons, Circa Waves and Pvris to name a few. But, often at festivals there are times where you'll just be wandering around and seeing who's playing. During one of these spells, we went to the The Sherlocks, and I really enjoyed their set! So you truly can discover artists at festivals.


So, those are some of my favourite memories, maybe I will go again in the future and form other memories...


Cheers,
Maho