10 Awesome Music Festivals We Should All Aim To Visit

9. Reading + Leeds Festivals €“ England

Originally just the Reading festival, this milestone of the Great British summertime first began in 1971 €“ again, as a result of the whole 60's free love movement thing. Quite oddly, the original order of the day (or rather, the weekend) was Jazz music. However, this had thankfully graduated into progressive rock and heavy metal by the mid-70's. Of course, the festival now also boasts a northern location near Leeds (introduced in 1999), with which it interacts on a rotational bill basis i.e. the bands performing at Reading on the weekends Friday will play Leeds on Saturday (or maybe Sunday, who knows?). Expanding gradually as the years go on, Reading + Leeds has enjoyed worldwide notoriety for a good while now, largely on the back of some of the legendary performances which have occurred on its stages (cough: Nirvana 1992). Announcements for this year's event arrived as recently as the beginning of this week, with two of three headliners confirmed in the shape of Blink-182 and Arctic Monkeys (who are, as ever, in exceptionally high demand this season).