8) Foals
“Wild horses wouldn’t let me be able to tell you who the special guests are,” proclaimed the Reading and Leeds festival organiser, Mr. Benn, when asked about who would fill the question-marked gap on everybody’s clashfinders early on the Saturday of the festival. Many music lovers and festival goers quickly realised this clanging hint could only mean one thing: Foals were to fill the seemingly empty secret set at Reading this year on the NME/BBC Radio 1 stage. The masses of clued up fans who had heard about the secret set eagerly awaited Foals to take to the stage, and when they did the whole tent was instantly thrown into frantic but ecstatic motion. Opening with ‘My Number,’ potentially the band’s most well known and catchy track, they enthralled the audience in seconds. Throughout Foals’ set excitement levels ran high as they blasted through their melodic indie-rock based repertoire. Despite merely playing a secret set, Foals were certainly one of the stand out acts of the whole festival.