Lewis Capaldi has hit back at Reading & Leeds critics for hiring him to headline the 2023 festivities.
As announced this morning (December 9), Capaldi will headline the double festival next August alongside Foals, Billie Eilish, The Killers, Sam Fender and Imagine Dragons.
Other artists on the bill include Wet Leg, Slowthai, Bicep, Becky Hill, Steve Lacy, Central Cee, MUNA, The Snuts, Tion Wayne and many more.
After the announcement, some criticized Capaldi for leading the list, and he responded with the predictable bad mood: “Fuck you.”
Via Twitter, Capaldi shared his joy at mainstream festivals and criticized those who are unhappy that fans have strayed from their rock roots.
“Reading and leeds is a ROCK festival what Lewis capaldi does there,” wrote the singer. Lewis Capaldi’s ‘Fuck you’ is not festival material. A dream come true to be one of the headliners… next year, see you there. “x”
In another tweet, he said: “It’s crazy he’s going to save rock when he’s reading and Leeds wtf.”
Capaldi played R+L in 2018 at the smaller venues the year before his debut album ‘Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent’ was released. The follow-up, “Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent,” will arrive this May.
“I’m so proud to be one of the headliners at Reading & Leeds Festival,” Capaldi said in a statement. “It’s unreal that the last time I played in front of a small crowd was in 2018. I can’t wait to see you all next year.”
Last week Capaldi shared a new single called ‘Pointless’. The track serves as the second lead to “Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent” following “Forget Me,” which came out in September.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘440680384427371’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
