Reading and Leeds festival is a pair of music festivals that take place annually in UK cities Reading and Leeds. The festival dates back as far as 1955 and is still famous today for being the longest running popular music festival to still exist. Every year on the August bank holiday weekend, Richfield Avenue in central Reading and Bramham Park in Leeds welcome over 100,000 avid music lovers for a weekend jam packed with music’s most current and popular artists.

This year’s festival runs from August 25th to August 27th, and the line up features headlining performances from Sam Fender, Foals, The Killers, The 1975, Billie Eilish and Imagine Dragons. Lewis Capaldi was set to be amongst this crowd, however, in June 2023 the Scottish sensation cancelled all his upcoming performances. Luckily, The 1975 were ready to replace him and perform as Reading and Leeds headliners for the third time in the band’s career.

If you weren’t able to make it to this year’s festival, do not feel like you’ve missed out completely! There is plenty of live coverage for you to get your live music fix this weekend.

BBC One will be broadcasting shows that feature highlights and coverage of two of this year’s headline performances, The Killers and Billie Eilish.

The Killers’ performance will be aired on BBC One on Sunday 27th August starting at 11:40pm. The Grammy nominated band is sure to get the crowd excited with their world famous Indie classics such as “Mr Brightside” and “Somebody Told Me”, as well as performing songs from their latest album Pressure Machine which was released in 2021.

Reading rocked again tonight! pic.twitter.com/SLXAvjN42l

— The Killers (@thekillers) August 26, 2023

Similarly, the BBC is set to air the much anticipated performance of Billie Eilish’s first ever Reading and Leeds headline on Monday 28th August at 11:15pm. The 21 year old has taken the world by storm with hits such as “Bad Guy”, “When the Party’s Over” and “What was I Made For?”, the latter being featured on the Soundtrack for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023) movie.

In addition to these two special shows, BBC iPlayer will have 24/7 coverage of Reading and Leeds festival, which can be found here. You will be able to livestream the entire festival for free, and from the comfort of your own home. Also, from Monday 28th August, there will be the opportunity to watch highlights from the weekend and even past performances from previous years, meaning you can catch up on all things Reading and Leeds even after the festival goer’s tents have been taken down.

You can also catch live broadcasts from Reading’s Main Stage East and Main Stage West on BBC Radio 1 throughout the weekend.

For the full line up, click here.

In a tweet, Bakar announced the news of his tour. He wrote, “tour. pre-order the album from my store by 5pm tmroo for early access to tickets.”

tour .
# pre-order the album from my store by 5pm tmroo for early access to tickets. https://t.co/9p5VSTJujt pic.twitter.com/5EQQzJjto7

— bakar (@yeaabk) July 3, 2023

Recently, the 29-year-old announced his second studio album Halo which is scheduled for release on September 1. Three days before he announced his 2023 tour, Bakar wrote on Instagram, “new album ‘Halo’ comes out on September 1st”. On June 21, Bakar dropped his latest single “Alive!” which will be in his new forthcoming album. The song is out on all platforms, and he released an official music video on YouTube where it is set in Central London.

Watch Bakar’s official video for “Alive!” below:

His first studio album Nobody’s Home was released last year in February through Black Butter Records, a British record label company who has signed various including Clean Bandit, J Hus, Jess Glynne, and Rudimental. The album debuted at number 31 on the UK albums charts and consisted of 14 songs including “Youthenasia”, “Reclaim!”, “Alone Again”, “Change of Heart”, and “Build Me a Way”. Clash Magazine described Nobody’s Home as an album with elements of “indie rock, alt pop, ravey elements, and SoundCloud rap developments”.

Listen to Nobody’s Home on Spotify below:

Abubakar Baker Shariff-Farr, also known as Bakar, started making music in 2015 by uploading cut up samples of Bombay Bicycle Club and King Krule songs to an anonymous SoundCloud account. In 2018, he released his single “Million Miles” and his mixtape Badkid. After his performance at Live At Leeds, NME described Bakar as an “electrifying performer” and an individual who has “cemented himself as one of Britain’s most exciting new acts”.

In 2019, the singer released his single “Hell n Back” from his EP Will You Be My Yellow? Despite it being released in 2019, the song charted internationally in 2023 where it peaked at number 20 on the UK Singles Chart. He also supported Travis Scott at Scott’s sold out concert, along with Chase B, at the London O2 Arena in 2022 .

This summer, Bakar will be performing again at the Reading and Leeds Festival on Friday (August 25) on the east main stage. The festival will take place between 25-27 August on the Bank Holiday weekend.

Bakar 2023 Tour: The Halo Tour
09/11/2023 – Circolo Magnolia – Milan
12/11 – Kesselhaus – Berlin
14/11 – Melkweg – Amsterdam
15/11 – CBE – Cologne
16/11 – Trix – Antwerp
18/11 – Dr Koncerthuset Studio 2 – Copenhagen
21/11 – O2 Academy – Glasgow
22/11 – The Academy – Dublin
23/11 – Limelight – Belfast
25/11 – Le Bataclan – Paris
28/11 – Eventim Apollo – London
30/11 – Albert Hall – Manchester

Presale tickets will be available tomorrow (July 5) at 10am (BST) for purchase here