The 2014 Reading & Leeds Festival Line-up is Rubbish. Or I'm Old. Or Music is Pants.

This evening the majority of the Reading & Leeds Festival (or should that be Leeds and Reading?) was revealed. Here it is.

For £210 you could visit what is considered amongst the best new music festivals in the country. Heck, even Europe. Across two venues and 3 days, it has also been the mainstay of my summer.

My first weekend visit was in 2006 and I haven't missed one since. That's 8 Leeds Festivals in a row, for all 3 days. I can't even begin to count how many different live acts that is, nor how much it has cost in total. But certainly, I've had a great time.

Some fantastic moments have come from Reading and Leeds. Far too many to pick a favourite. The worst performance I ever saw was there too (naming no names). So, imagine my excitement when the 2014 line-up is revealed. After quite a few teasers from the OfficialRandL Twitter account, the hint at a double head-liner on one of the days, the net result was something of a let down. But why? Certainly, 2014 will be the first that I will not be there for the full weekend, and at this point, net even with a day ticket.

The music does not grab me. Now, I am the first to lay blame at my age. At 25, I am practically retired. Far too old for a festival. But hey, I like to think that I'm up to speed with music. I really do. I love it and I love nothing more than witnessing it live. That isn't stopping soon. But, if you want to call me out of touch, so be it.

No, in fact my main problem is that I have seen most of these acts before. I don't mean away from a festival either, I mean I have seen most of these acts at Leeds Festival itself, before! The problem is the festival is no longer representing what the younger audience is listening to. It seems as if it is trying to please the same audience that went back in 2006, only they are now older. There is a distinct lack of new music on show, yet it has always meant to be predominately about new music since inception. Keeping up with trends, heck, even setting them.

I am sure that it will be a great time with some incredible performances. But the festival is in danger of becoming, well, closer to 30 than 20.

Gone are the days of serious mosh pits, the fight to get to the front, the massive crowd sways, the Sunday night "riots". I was never a fan, always wishing that to go away. It has and I was wrong. These days, it's tame. Enjoyable, but tame and lacking in character. Relying on former glories with the line-up has a part to play.

I'll wrap up now, as I've rambled on for too long already. Even though it doesn't sound like it, I want to go to Leeds and Reading. But, with this music, I really can't. Here are the acts from the 2014 list, that I have seen in the past, at the same festival in previous years. Some not even long ago. As always, tweet me with how wrong I am about this.

• Queens Of The Stone Age
• Blink 182
• Paramore
• Vampire Weekend
• Deaf Havana
• Arctic Monkeys
• Imagine Dragons
• Foster The People
• The Hives
• Peace
• Courteeners
• Warpaint
• Temples
• Bombay Bicycle Club
• Chvrches
• Cage The Elephant
• Metronomy
• Bondax
• Klaxons
• Pendulum

(As an aside, haven't most people seen Jake Bugg and Disclosure live already, with their never-ending tours? I know I have)

The Super Bowl and It's Crazy Adverts

In case you missed it, recently the Super Bowl [XLVII] happened. This is a sporting event that I have a great interest in. Not, however, for the American Football. I once tried to watch it about 3 years ago, but really struggled. I managed until The Who had finished their half-time set and went to bed.

No, I can’t wait until the morning after, when all the amazing SuperBowl adverts get uploaded to the internet. Companies intent on making a statement advertise during the event. Heck, the sport often pauses just for TV Spot breaks. For a budding marketeer like myself, I always make a point to try and watch all the noteworthy adverts. This year was no exception and provided some very interesting trends.

The first is something America is very good at. Patriotism. There are many examples of this in 2013, such as the Dodge RAM pickup truck advert about religious farmers. But, the best (or worst) example this year was the Jeep advert. So “U.S.A.”, it’s no wonder that a great deal of American’s don’t know the wider world. Here we have dramatic music, American cars that are made in America, a voice over from Oprah Winfrey and a celebration of Jeep actually sponsoring the US troops and placing commemorative badges on the ve-hicles! It seems that if you want to sell in America, make it in America. Even the Korean Kia Sorento is now “Made in the US”.

Not going the Patriotic route? Find it too, well, predictable? Well, it would seem, the other trend was to be wacky. A bit out there. VW tried to recapture the public like their previous years attempts with a man speaking like a laid back Bob Marley (a not-so-subtle hint back to the days of Flower Power VW Beetles) but ultimately missed the mark a little. Website hosting service GoDaddy wheeled out both Patriotism (the first famous lady racing driver, Danica Patrick, who is American) and Wacky (a stereotyped geek, kissing a leggy blonde model). But far from the perfect marriage, it was a bit sick.

Other noteworthy weirdness was Fiat suggesting the electric 500 is good for sex, Stevie Wonder promoting Budweiser and Axe (or Lynx as we know it in the UK) running a promotion to literally send a competition winner into space. While we’re on a role, how about Mercedes-Benz trying too hard to be hip. The advert for the new CLA car features a young man, but the soundtrack is the Rolling Stones. Then Usher appears. Talk about not-cool Uncle talking about how many Friends he has on Facebook....

All the weirdness, is of course, very deliberate. It causes people to talk about the brand. So they hope. But there were a couple of spots that were genuinely funny. The M&M advert where they parody Meatloaf’s I Would Do Anything For Love was particularly smart, and Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) being self aware to promote milk while there is an apocalypse showed a certain self awareness.


We were also treated to PSY doing a version of Gangnam style.....but about....Pistachio nuts. No really. It has to be seen to be believed.

But lastly, the overarching theme was Social Media. Every single ad had to have an official #Hashtag. They were literally everywhere. Once a nice way of monitoring if your advert was a success of not, now very much de rigueur. More importantly, the hashtags used were universally odd. For instance, Audi's wasn't #Audi or #AudiSuperBowl but #Bravery. yes, it may get people talking on the internet, but is it on message for the brand?

However, despite all the gigantic sums of money paid for the advertisement slots, Oreo stole the show. Not only was their advert funny and clever, but their marketing team pulled an allnighter. During the game, the stadium suffered from a power-outage for about an hour. Oreo tweeted a pic, and they got more Tweets, Mentions and Retweets than anyone else. Well played Oreo.

Until next year, #SuperBowlAdvertHashTagOurBrandIsCool.