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Hip-Hop Lives Here
An application from Reading Festival seeking permission to present music on Thursday evening has faced opposition from nearby residents concerned about additional noise.
Organisers revealed in July that the two site festival had requested an amendment to its licence that would permit Thursday performances, effectively expanding the event to four days.
Wednesday and Thursday traditionally serve as arrival and preparation days, allowing attendees to enter the grounds and arrange their campsites before the entertainment begins on Friday and continues through Sunday over the August bank holiday weekend.
According to a report published by BBC News in July, Festival Republic asked for amplified performances to be permitted on the main stage every Thursday between 5pm and midnight. Approval from Reading Borough Council could see the new arrangement introduced from 2027.
The 2026 event is scheduled for August 27 through August 30. Leeds Festival takes place during the same weekend and already holds permission to present Thursday music. It will use that licence for the first time this year when Kasabian headline the main stage.
The plan to host performances in Reading from 5pm until midnight on Thursday has prompted criticism from the surrounding community, with hundreds of people objecting because of potential noise disruption.
Elisa Miles, chair of the Warren & District Residents Association, known as WADRA, has now clarified that the group is “not opposed” to Reading Festival itself. However, it remains worried about how an additional night of amplified entertainment could affect people living nearby.
“Through this long-standing partnership, we have helped [Festival Republic] better understand the impact the festival has on nearby residents and have worked together to develop practical solutions,” she said via BBC News. “Loud amplified music late into the evening will disrupt sleep for those who have no choice but to remain at home.”
Malcolm Pemble of the Caversham and District Residents Association, also known as CADRA, supported those concerns and described the proposed change as “unfair” to the local community.
Festival Republic has defended its application, saying an assessment concluded that Thursday performances would not “adversely impact” residents. The organiser argued that scheduled evening entertainment would give visitors somewhere structured to gather instead of “being left to congregate in the campsites or less supervised areas”.
Fontaines D.C., Florence + The Machine, DAVE, Charli XCX, RAYE and Chase & Status have all been announced as headliners for Reading and Leeds.
This year will also introduce major changes to the stages and arena layouts, which organisers have called the most extensive transformation in the festivals’ history. Little John’s Farm in Reading and Bramham Park in Leeds will both receive an updated Main Stage, renamed The Grid, alongside two new spaces called The Gallery and The Warehouse.
During a conversation with NME about the redesign, festival director Melvin Benn said the plans had made him “as excited about Reading & Leeds as I’ve ever been”.
“I’m as excited about Reading & Leeds from when I started Leeds, in fact, in 1999. This really is the next phase of Reading & Leeds festivals,” he shared.
Benn also addressed the strong presence of headliners from the UK and Ireland on this year’s bill and whether that emphasis had been planned.
“We happen to have found ourselves this year in a position where we have six-seven headliners that wanted to play Reading & Leeds that are all UK and Ireland-based,” he said. “When you add people like Kneecap, for instance – who headlined their own show just two weeks ago down in Crystal Palace, with 25,000 people at it – it shows the strength of UK and Irish music. I do think festivals like Reading & Leeds have played their part in developing that.”
Before the 2026 festivals begin, Reading & Leeds have partnered with Spotify to introduce fans to new performers through customised playlists shaped by each listener’s music habits.
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Matthew McConaughey has shared that a well known track by Janet Jackson inspired him to stop smoking cannabis.
The Oscar winning actor selected the 1993 single for Rolling Stone’s My Life In 10 Songs feature. “What a cool, groovy little tune. It’s also the reason I quit smoking weed,” he said before letting out a sharp laugh. McConaughey explained that he discovered the track “right around the time weed started turning hydroponic,” when the effects had become far more intense and psychedelic.
Looking back on how cannabis had changed, he recalled: “A lot of y’all don’t remember, but weed used to be: you could roll a joint, smoke it, pass it around, everyone giggles, gets the munchies, and maybe runs off and tries to get some snuggle time. Well then it started getting this hydroponic stuff where one toke, the subplots could become unmanageable, and people would implode.”
McConaughey then described the night that convinced him to quit: “I was headed to my own birthday party. We’d taken over the club for my birthday party. I’m gonna drive myself. Before I go, my buddy hands me this joint, he goes, ‘Here, man. Have some of this, super fun.’ I get there, and I take the toke in the car. It was not like the weed I’d smoked before. I listened to Janet Jackson’s ‘That’s the Way Love Goes’ 24 times in a row, and when I finally got out of the car to go into my birthday party, no one was in there, ‘cause it was over. They’d all left.”
He finished the story by saying: “I sat in the frickin’ car listening to ‘That’s the Way Love Goes’ 24 times because I thought, at the time, that that was more important than going to my own birthday party. Love the song, didn’t love the weed. Still like the tune, though.”
‘That’s The Way Love Goes’ became one of Jackson’s biggest commercial successes and introduced a more mature R&B sound following her earlier pop breakthrough. It remained at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks and climbed to number two on the UK singles chart.
In another recent story, McConaughey explained how mentioning his former screen partner Jennifer Lopez helped him avoid trouble with Mexican border officers.
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