Ah, Reading Festival. No matter the crisis, you’ve always been there for us.
From dodgy teenage haircuts to for-the-best break-ups, you’ve consistently managed to take our minds away from the real world for one short, sweet weekend at the end of every August.
A set of sub-par exam results? Briefly forgotten in the midst of an Arctic Monkeys mosh pit. Our first heartbreak? Healed by belting out Somebody Else by The 1975 like our lives depended on it. And an extended spell of post-uni doubt about our ability to ever get A Real Job in this economy? Well, that was nothing that the biblical force of a Biffy Clyro headline set couldn’t distract us from for an hour or so.
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We suppose what we’re trying to say is that Reading Festival is a rite of passage.
It’s more than just a lot of people’s first festival; it’s their first weekend of freedom, or a welcome distraction from the omnipresent trials and tribulations of day-to-day life. It’s a hopeful escape, and a weekend away from the real world. It’s not just important – it’s necessary.
And if there’s one word we would use to sum up Reading Festival 2025, it’d be just that: necessary.
Necessary not just for us as fans, but for artists too. At a time when grassroots venues are closing at an alarming rate, major stages like Reading’s provide a crucial first step into the big leagues – and this is something the festival does particularly brilliantly
Take Alessi Rose, and her leap from a 2024 slot on the festival’s BBC Introducing stage straight to a Main Stage placement in 2025; festival favourites Enter Shikari, receiving a heroes’ welcome on the Saturday afternoon; or Bring Me The Horizon’s slow and steady slog up the bill, before returning for this, their second headline performance. Where else might these stars have gotten their first taste of festival stages if not for Reading Festival?
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And then there’s the festival’s other great gift: the reminder that escape doesn’t have to mean running away.
Chappell Roan’s technicolour, tongue-in-cheek pop anthems offered the crowd an escape hatch from reality – a glittering invitation to let go and lose ourselves. Later, Hozier, with the sheer weight of his sincerity, reminded us why we sometimes need that release in the first place, his voice and words carrying with them the ache of real-world struggles and the necessity of facing them head on.
Of course, no Reading weekend would be complete without a dose of indie nostalgia, and The Kooks and Bloc Party delivered it in spades, serving up the kind of indie anthems that instantly transported the crowd back to sticky-floored clubs and half-burnt mix CDs. It was escapism of a different sort – not glitter-drenched or politically charged, but rooted in memory, in the comforting echo of songs that once carried us through awkward adolescence.
But nostalgia alone never tells the whole Reading story. It’s also about the unexpected – the bizarre curveballs that become instant folklore. And just when we thought we knew where The Kooks’ set was headed, they invited Rebel Wilson on stage for a joyfully unhinged take on Gangsta’s Paradise. It was bizarre, brilliant, and exactly the kind of absurdity festivals are made for: a collective step out of reality, into a moment so unlikely it felt like a shared dream.
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For us, it’s that balance of escapism and surprise that made Reading 2025 feel so vital.
It was a weekend that gave us room to breathe, space to dance, and, just for a while, a way to hold the chaos of life at arm’s length without ever pretending it isn’t there.
Because that’s the thing about Reading Festival: it doesn’t just soundtrack our summers, it soundtracks our lives. From dodgy teenage haircuts to quarter-life crises, it’s always been there – a dependable August escape, equal parts absurd and essential.
Reading Festival has always mattered. But in 2025, it reminded us why we keep coming back: because in the middle of everything, sometimes what we need most is a little necessary chaos.
