News Reading & Leeds 2010: Friday 27th / Sunday 29th Guide

Reading & Leeds - the land where all good plans go to die. Regardless, we’re giving you tips of just one amazing route through the festival. Excuse the number of spazzgasmic adjectives, but with the prospect of a day of music quite so awesome, it’s easy to get excited.

11:30 - 11:55 Gaggle

If you’re an early bird who’s able to hit the arena before those mammoth queues form at the gates, then head right over to the Festival Republic stage by 11.30am to see the colourfully adorned 20-odd strong chorus better known as Gaggle, who’ll wake you up (in more ways than one)

12:00 - 12:30 Frankie & The Heartstrings

Rush over to the NME/Radio 1 Stage for Sunderland (relative) newbies Frankie & The Heartstrings, who, given they make like Factory and give everything a catalogue number on label PopSex Ltd, probably have a three-digit POPSEX suffix ready for their festival appearances.

12:45 - 13:20 Surfer Blood

Surfer Blood have a track on their album that, for the first 10 seconds, has us convinced it’s actually an Arcade Fire song. Thankfully they’re on a different day, on a different stage, at a different time. And otherwise sound nothing like Arcade Fire. If it wasn’t for that we might get very confused indeed.

13:35 - 14:10 New Young Pony Club

New Young Pony Club’s recent second album wasn’t as bad as expected. That’s hardly the most ringing endorsement ever, so how about this one: it was actually quite good. That and, a couple of hours in, you don’t want to be left watching Billy Talent on the main stage, do you?

14:30 - 15:10 Girls

We’ve spent about 10 minutes trying to think of a way to work this blurb into the format of the Blur classic ‘Girls & Boys’. We can’t. If we could, it would have been amazing. Just like they are.

15:05 - 15:35 Summer Camp

Summer Camp are on the DO NOT BLOODY MISS YOU DOLT list. This means there is ab-so-lutely no excuse for not seeing J-Wo and Sankles not-quite-ripping-it-up-but-you-get-the-idea. We spend too long on Twitter and in dark rooms. Regardless, Summer Camp remain bleedin’ lovely.

15:50 - 16:25 Pulled Apart By Horses

Pulled Apart By Horses, live, are literally like being pulled apart by horses. Just without the horses. Or, if you’re smart, the pulling. People at festivals smell bad. Awesome music though, we’ll let you have.

16:40 - 17:15 Egyptian Hip-Hop

If Egyptians had had Hip Hop, they’d have managed to write this blurb without sinking into sad, lonely urban stereotypes. Home boy. Sorry.

17:40 - 18:25 Yeasayer

Yeasayer’s most recent video scares us something rotten, but their two head-numbingly-great albums don’t. So much so we’re willing to suck up our fear of vomiting flesh blobs. Aren’t we brave?

18:25 - 19:05 Warpaint

Warpaint’s album is due, which means it’s about as good a time as you’ll get to check ‘em out. That, and first time round we typed Warpant. They’re FAR better than Warpant.

19:45 - 20:50 Queens Of The Stone Age

Josh Homme is a man who can do no wrong, unless you count her from The Distillers as wrong. When we’ve sidestepped that mildly unsavoury comment, QOTSA playing ‘Feel Good Hit Of The Summer’ on the main stage as the sun goes down is the best thing you can imagine, unless you imagine rainbows and unicorns.

20:25 - 21:10 Blood Red Shoes

You should have time for a bit of Blood Red Shoes, which is good news, because Blood Red Shoes are ace. Have your face shredded by a two piece before heading into the dance-yourself-silly zone.

21:10 - 22:00 Phoenix

Part one of none-more-awesome night comes from Phoenix, who become the greatest warm up act you can imagine for The Main Event. It’s a bit rude to describe a band so good in such ways, but when you’re followed by The Murph, some things are just unavoidable.

22:30 - 23:30 LCD Soundsystem

This might be the last time some of you get to see LCD Soundsystem. The last time you see James Murphy perform these songs. The last time tears will stream down your face to ‘Someone Great’. The last time ‘Daft Punk..’ will make you grin so hard you want to vomit. The last time you never, ever want ‘Yeah’ to end. Make the most of it. It’ll be Totally Amazing.