How well do you know your Reading and Leeds festival history – quiz

Let’s do the stagewarp … This is how the festival looks to many attendees by Sunday afternoon. Photograph: BBC

1. 

   We know and love it as the Reading and Leeds festival. And before that as the Reading festival. But it wasn’t always at Reading. Which of the following sets of venues were among the previous hosts of the event?

   1. Windsor racecourse, Kempton Park racecourse, Plumpton racecourse

   2. Swindon Town FC, Oxford United FC and Reading FC

   3. Wasps RFC, Richmond RFC, London Irish RFC

   4. Windsor Great Park, Richmond Park, Bushy Park

2. 

   Which act was reported to be the first in the festival’s history to be pelted with coins by disgruntled fans?

   1. Daphne and Celeste

   2. Bonnie Tyler

   3. The Herd

   4. L7

3. 

   Which unlikely figure roadied for George Melly with John Chilton’s Feetwarmers in 1973?

   1. Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers

   2. George Harrison of the Beatles

   3. Frank Bough of Grandstand

   4. David Coverdale of Deep Purple

4. 

   The Reading festival stopped for two years in 1984 and 1985. What event caused its return in 1986?

   1. Peter Gabriel buying the festival site and declaring it must host live music every year

   2. The promise that it would also act as a commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the 1966 World Cup

   3. The discovery that the land it had been held on had turned fallow from years of pollution, and it had no use for farming

   4. A Labour council being elected and promising to return the festival to Reading

5. 

   According to rock legend, what unlikely item did Incubus demand to be supplied with when they appeared at Reading?

   1. A complete range of chemical tests on 20 different places on the site, to prove there was no urine contamination

   2. Two fully tuned air guitars, with new strings, signed by Jimmy Page

   3. A trip to Readers’ Digest HQ in Swindon, with a meal at Greek Olive, the town’s top restaurant

   4. Their own horse and carriage for travelling around the site

6. 

   The 1988 festival is remembered for the number of acts who were pelted with bottles – Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler among them – but who were that year’s headliners?

   1. Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler and Ramones

   2. Iggy Pop, Starship and Squeeze

   3. New Order, the Mission and the Pogues

   4. Michael Schenker Group, Whitesnake and Motörhead

7. 

   At the 1989 festival, how much would one pint of lager and one pint of cider have cost you?

   1. £2.60

   2. £3.00

   3. £3.40

   4. £3.80

8. 

   The festival gained a Leeds leg in 1999, but the 2002 Leeds event was marred by what?

   1. An organised protest by Leeds United fans, unhappy their team had failed to qualify for the new season’s Champions League

   2. A series of guerrilla gigs by Chumbawumba, who were eventually knocked down by security, and didn’t get up again

   3. What were widely reported as riots, with toilets being burned down

   4. The presence, as main stage compere, of TV’s Les Dennis

9. 

   How long did it take for tickets to the 2006 festival to sell out?

   1. Two hours

   2. Two days

   3. Two weeks

   4. Two months

10. 

    Among the headliners this year are Red Hot Chili Peppers. After this weekend, how many times will they have headlined Reading/Leeds?

    1. Once

    2. Three times

    3. Five times

    4. Seven times

Solutions

1:A - The very first festival in 1962, took place at Richmond Athletic Ground, before moving to the racecourses., 2:C - Peter Frampton’s band suffered the indignity at the hands of people waiting for Jerry Lee Lewis in 1969., 3:B - ‘Nobody in the crowd recognised him,’ Chilton remembered in his memoirs., 4:D - The cancelled years denied Marillion, who had been booked for 1984, their chance to headline Reading., 5:B - Which is stupid, because everyone knows Jimmy Page is reluctant to sign guitars, for fear they will be resold. , 6:B - This was the last year before the festival ‘went indie’., 7:A - £1.40 for the lager, £1.20 for the cider., 8:C - The moral: don’t give kids matches and chemical toilets., 9:A - There was no Glastonbury that year, so Reading was the big draw. Franz Ferdinand were among the headliners., 10:B - And yet it feels like so many more times.

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