Reading and Leeds: where are the women?

By Rebecca Nicholson

Reading and Leeds festivals have announced their first batch of bands in NME today, and although there are some impressive names - god love you, Metallica - there's a distinct lack of anybody remotely female on the bill. So let's do us some maths.

Here's who they've announced for the main stage so far, followed by number of members in brackets - all men, unless stated otherwise:

Friday, Reading / Saturday, Leeds

Rage Against The Machine (4)

Queens Of The Stone Age (5)

The Fratellis (3)

The Enemy (3)

Biffy Clyro (3)

Serj Tankian (1)

Dizzee Rascal (1)

Taking Back Sunday (4)

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly (1)

Anti-Flag (4)

Saturday, Reading / Sunday, Leeds

The Killers (4)

Bloc Party (4)

The Raconteurs (4)

Editors (4)

We Are Scientists (3)

Dirty Pretty Things (4)

The Subways (2 men, 1 lady)

Sunday, Reading / Friday, Leeds

Metallica (4)

Tenacious D (2)

Slipknot (9)

Feeder (3)

Avenged Sevenfold (5)

Dropkick Murphys (7)

And the NME/Radio 1 stage:

Friday, Reading / Saturday, Leeds

Babyshambles (4)

The Wombats (3)

Vampire Weekend (4)

MGMT (2)

Saturday, Reading / Sunday, Leeds

Manic Street Preachers (3)

Bullet For My Valentine (4)

Justice (2)

Foals (5)

Sunday, Reading / Friday, Leeds

The Cribs (3)

Conor Oberst (1)

Pendulum (5)

By our reckoning, that's all of one woman - the bassist in the Subways - to 120 men. 120:1 - way to go with the ratios, Reading and Leeds. Now, while we let this sit with you, we're going to try and get hold of one of the bookers to ask them what's up with this macho-fest. Pop back for more later.

6 comments

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Sean Adams 2 Apr at 02:12 PM

to be fair...

Conor Oberst is about 1/3 female.

Helen Of Troy 2 Apr at 05:06 PM

It's not as if...

2007/2008 have been all about female singer-songwriters either!!

Anna-Marie Crowhurst 2 Apr at 05:20 PM

Or does this mean

men are (proportionally) better than women at making music?

Discuss.

Claire Webb 3 Apr at 03:04 PM

I opt for sexist pigs...

...which is fine, as they're digging their own piss-lined (or would that be Carling?) grave.

Let's hope 2008 is the year Britain's finest songstresses unwind their guitar strings, strangle (or at least trip up) the skinny-jeaned posers, before penning a mighty fine tune about it all.

Having said that, Vampire Weekend are absolutely brilliant.

3 Apr at 06:51 PM

quotas

fuck it: let's see some quotas for music festivals and events, just as there are in (some) countries for political representation. it'd be ace if they were FORCED to have a 50/50 gender split in the lineup. i'm so sick of WAITING for change to happen. how can it happen when year on year Leeds / Reading is a total sausagefest? girls aren't going to stand in the audience there and think 'yeah, i can do that'.... so there won't be any girl bands to choose from... so the promoters will be justified in saying 'we looked for girl bands, honest, but we couldn't find any!'... and the status quo will continue for evs. i want change now! i'm impatient! DOWN WITH 'QUO. UP WITH QUOTAS! i'm painting that on a placard TONIGHT!

Madeleine Fenner 4 Apr at 12:32 PM

Last Year...

I went to Reading and Gossip, The Long Blondes, Kate Nash, the Pipettes, Paramore (led by Hayley Williams), CSS and more were all on the bill. Yes there were lots of all-male bands but there were some female bands/singers. Hopefully when more of the line-up is announced there'll be more women. You couldn't get near Kate Nash last year for the crowds and she only did a short set.