Sunday at Reading and Friday at Leeds is a rap centred day, though with a range of other tastes being catered for across the stages.
Main Stage:
- 12:10pm – Demae
- 1:05pm – Songer
- 2:05pm – Waterparks
- 3:05pm – Sea Girls
- 4:05pm – Suki Waterhouse
- 5:15pm – Amyl & The sniffers
- 6:30pm – Trippie Redd
- 7:50pm – D-Block Europe
- 9:50pm – Travis Scott
Demae
The perfect Sunday palate cleanser for those with heavy hangovers. Beautiful vocals over jazz tinged soul and R & B.
Songer
Reading rap/hip-hop artist Songer feels close to properly blowing up. He has popped up on a range of tracks with other rising artists in recent years alongside a very decent 2024 album The Price of Therapy. Like The Amazons, it shows you very much can go from the Purple Turtle to the Reading Festival Main Stage. The video for brilliant new track ‘Alive’ was filmed entirely at Reading Station. Expect this performance to be a very big deal, and quite emotional, for him.
Waterparks
This American pop-rock band have somehow already been going for fourteen years and five albums. They very much know how to craft a tune. Should appeal to fans of Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy.
Sea Girls
One of those permanently slightly under the radar indie bands that are quietly very decent. We watched them on their last appearance in 2023 and it was a very professional and enjoyable outing.
Suki Waterhouse
Former model, sometimes actress, partner of film star Robert Pattinson and also a highly successful singer with two hit albums under her belt. Waterhouse began dabbling with music in 2016 but has been much more seriously at the indie-pop coalface since 2021. This is not your standard boring pop music, there are deeper facets here. Also, has there been a better title for an album recently than ‘Memoir of a Sparklemuffin’?
Amyl & The sniffers
Abrasive Australian garage-punk rockers. Despite the horrendous name, everyone seems to be a fan these days and they went down very well at Glastonbury Festival. It will be a toss up between themselves and Lambrini Girls as to who will do the most literal and metaphorical flag waving for Palestine, following on from Kneecap’s dynamite set at Reading last year.
Trippie Redd
One half of one of the biggest singles of 2024 in ‘Thick Of It’ with KSI. His last album was a monster in streaming totalling numbers over two billion. This is a rap and trap artist who deserves to be taken very seriously. Trippie and Travis go way back so expect some collaboration shenanigans in either, or both, sets.
D-Block Europe
One of those groups that will have most middle-aged people going, “Who?” A hip-hop and rap collective powerhouse who are everywhere on streaming and social media. ‘Prada,’ an inspired remix of ‘Ferrari Horses’ with Cassö and Raye was EVERYWHERE. It peaked at number two on the UK chart and is currently pushing a billion streams on Spotify alone.
Travis Scott
How big is Travis Scott? His last album JACKBOYS2 has been out for less than a month and already thirteen of the seventeen tracks are beyond ten million streams on Spotify. The rapper and psychadaelic trap artist is a worldwide beheamoth and getting him on an exclusive European deal for 2025 is a real coup for Reading and Leeds. This will be a huge show. Even with just him and a DJ he can command a stage, equally he can put on a massive spectacle as his Circus Maximus tour has shown. There will always be those who argue his gigs get out of hand and that he encourages this. This came to a head on his own Astroworld Festival in 2021 where 10 people died after a fatal crowd crush. Whilst it is likely to be insane down the front at Reading and Leeds let us be clear, these are well drilled and well organised festivals and this sort of incident could not happen. The Astroworld event came from being over-capacity with poor security, Reading Main Stage is broken down into sections at the front for a reason and security are always swift to step in if they need to. Travis was last at Reading and Leeds in 2018 where he bought out Drake, so ANYTHING is possible this time around.
Best Alternative Options
If you don’t mind missing out on some of the Main Stage acts Reading Indie Life’s Sunday picks that directly clash are:
- WENCH! 1:50pm BBC Introducing Stage: A quite extraordinary young punk-rock band from Hull.
- Cliffords 12:55pm BBC Introducing Stage: Utterly gorgeous indie tunes from an immensely talented Irish band.
- Nieve Ella 8:00pm Festival Republic Stage: If you want an alternative to D-Block Europe’s questionable lyrics and attitudes to women then you can join Reading Indie Life watching this excellent rock/indie-pop artist.
- Antony Szmierek 4:15pm Festival Republic Stage: Spoken word/sort of sung poetry set over gentle dance beats.
- Luvcat 5:15pm Festival Republic Stage: If you want a quieter alternative to Amyl and the Sniffers then this alternative rock/dark pop project from Sophie Morgan Howarth are on the rise and have an amazing sound.
Reading Indie Life 
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