LEEDS FESTIVAL FOCUS: Circa Waves

Festival season is in full swing and here at Gigslutz Towers we’ve witnessed some brilliant moments already. Next up for us is the mammoth Reading & Leeds Festivals – an annual event which pulls probably the most consistently strong line up of any of its peers.

As well as the big hitters on the main stage including Queens Of The Stone Age an Arctic Monkeys, the smaller stages boast some incredible acts which will no doubt be making the move up in subsequent years. One of those is the hotly tipped Circa Waves

Circa Waves are a foursome from Liverpool who despite only being together for a short period of time have been making quite a stir including getting the heralded ‘Hottest Record In The World’ on Zane Lowe’s Radio 1 show and nabbing the support slot for the Libertines huge Ally Pally shows. Ahead of Reading & Leeds appearances we caught up with frontman Kieran from to find out more…

Hello Kieran – how are you today?

We got back from our first trip to Australia about two hours a go so everyone is a bit jet lagged and confused right now.

We are deep into festival season and you’ve played some of the biggest. How have you found festival season so far

It’s been amazing really. To play Glastonbury was obviously quite special but also getting to travel to European festivals and have people know our songs has been really fun.

Cool. Would you say you prefer playing the festivals to your own gig?

I probably prefer the smaller gigs sometimes, especially when you feel like the crowd’s right on top of you. The gap between the band and the audience sort of disappears and they’re always the best moments.

What are your festival essentials items?

A cricket set, gin and some mates.

What is your best festival experience – either as a punter or performer?

As a punter one of my favourite festival moments was Slotsfjell Festival in 2011. Seeing Mogwai for the first time in one of the best settings you could want.

And what about your worst?

Buying a really cheap tent for Melt festival and waking up actually blue from the cold. Not a good idea.

Ouch! What would be your dream festival line up of living artists?

Prince, Andrew WK and Steven Segal. Maybe Sting if we could get him.

You are playing Leeds & Reading Festivals at the end of the month – What do you like in particular about these two?

Reading/Leeds was the first festival for a few of us so for that reason it’s always been a bit special place for us. When we started Circa Waves playing here was high on the to do list.

Will you be trying to watch any other bands on the line up?

I saw Arctic Monkeys at my first Leeds festival in 2006 so seeing them again this year will be cool. Also if we can then Die Antwoord

And what can we expect from your set at Reading & Leeds?

We’ve just finished recording our album and so there’ll be a lot of new songs from it in our set.

Cool – looking forward to hearing them. Finally 2014 has been a great year for you with NME tours and radio 1 airplay to name just two highlights – what is next for Circa Waves?

Next we visit Scandinavia and Japan followed by Reading and Leeds so that is going to be a good month.

Circa Waves play the Festival Republic stage at Leeds festival on Friday 22nd August and Reading the following day.

 

There is a very limited number of tickets left for Leeds festival. Click here for more details and to purchase.

 

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