Eagulls recall their first festivals at Reading 2016

Eagulls guitarist Liam Matthews and bassist Tom Kelly had very different first festival experiences. Matthews headed to Leeds for his hometown bash, and saw more than he bargained for - “it was the year that everyone ransacked the beer lorry and were just stealing crates off it”.

Kelly, conversely, got a suntan and a sore back from the rubble-based camping ground at Spain’s Benicassim. Eagulls don’t consider themselves a festival band - instead liking to obsess over stage shows, lighting rigs and every minor detail of a full performance - but relish the idea that a festival-goer unaware of their band could come into the tent on a whim and leave a fan.

“We’re really hoping that we do enough to get people back for the full show,” Kelly remarks, while emphasising that Eagulls didn’t start as a band with ambitions as big as these, and to end up at their hometown festival.

“We started the band to do just that - to start a band with our mates and express ourselves. It’s just by chance that it’s got this far. It was never the plan, but we’re amazed and proud that we’re here.”