Rage Against The Machine and Bring Me The Horizon head up eclectic Reading/Leeds Festivals line-up

RATM — (Image credit: C Flanigan/FilmMagic)

Rage Against The Machine and Bring Me The Horizon have been announced as two of the six headliners at next summer’s Reading and Leeds festivals.

The LA rap-rock legends and Oli Sykes’ shape-shifting Sheffield quintet join rapper Dave, Megan Thee Stallion, Arctic Monkeys and Halsey at the top of an exciting, eclectic bill for the 2022 events, which will take place on the weekend of 26-28 August.

Other artists listed in the first announcement of the 2022 line-up include Enter Shikari, Fever 333, Fontaines D.C., Wolf Alice, Run The Jewels, Maneskin, Pale Waves and Little Simz.

Poster below.

Reading/Leeds Poster 2022 — (Image credit: Live Nation)

2021 marked the first year Reading and Leeds booked six main stage headline acts across the weekend, with the festival debuting two separate main stages. Festival organisers were forced to make last-minute changes to the line-up when a number of international acts (including Spiritbox, Fever333 and headliners Queens Of The Stone Age) were unable to travel to the UK, with Biffy Clyro instead taking over as one of the 6 headliners booked for the 2022 event.

The festival will mark the first time in over a decade that Rage Against The Machine have played the UK, as well as the 30th anniversary of their seminal debut record. The band had previously been booked for the 2020 event which was ultimately cancelled due to the pandemic.

Bring Me The Horizon have played Reading and Leeds six times (including a secret appearance at the 2018 edition of the event), making their first appearance in 2008 and subsequently creeping up the bill with each new appearance, achieving their first UK No. 1 album with 2019's Amo. 2021 marks the first time the Sheffield alt. metal group have headlined the festival, playing alongside fellow Sheffield residents Arctic Monkeys.

Speaking about the booking, the band stated, "To be headlining Reading & Leeds was never even a dream of mine as it’s something I could never imagine happening.. I just never saw our band as a festival headline act. But now it’s happening I promise you we are going to put on the best show of our lives for you lot.”

Split between Richfield Avenue in Reading and Bramham Park in Leeds, the 2022 edition of the festival will take place on bank holiday weekend, 26th - 28th August 2022. Tickets are due to go on sale from 9am on Friday 10th December, with instalment plans available for both sites.

For more info, visit the official website.

Artists

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.