Music Festivals

Festival organisers confirm exclusivity for Reading and Leeds headliners.

Through the comments made by organiser Melvyn Benn to BBC Newsbeat – in which he confirmed that the headliners for Leeds 2011 won’t be found topping any other UK festival this summer – we can now cross off a number of bands from the rumours list.

Headliners at Download 2011 are System of a Down and Linkin Park, while Foo Fighters are confirmed for T In The Park.

You’ll also find Foo Fighters headlining at the Isle of Wight Festival, along with Pulp who are listed as the main support on the Saturday. That doesn’t rule Pulp out – on a mere technicality – but we’d suggest it is highly unlikely that they will be a Main Stage headliner this year.

Edit – as Jimmy points out Pulp are headlining the Wireless Festival this summer. So actually that does indeed rule them out of a headline slot at Leeds. Thanks Jimmy.

Also listed as headliners at T In The Park are Coldplay and Arctic Monkeys.

Metallica headline the Friday night at Sonisphere 2011, with Biffy Clyro and Slipknot completing the line up there.

You can find Kasabian topping both Isle of Wight Festival 2011 and Rock Ness 2011, with Kings Of Leon also making a bill-topping appearance at Isle of Wight Festival.

The revelation is nothing new and it is fairly typical for Leeds to have full UK exclusivity on its headliners. But it’s always good to hear it from the man himself.

So now we know who it is not, who does that leave and who would you go for?

The Strokes and Muse still seem strong possibilities, as we reported last year here, here and here, but are there any others you’d put your money on?