The 23rd-25th August seen the annual Reading (and don't forget about Leeds as well!) festival rolling into Richfield Avenue, and most parties would widely agree that this year's spectacle was a great success. Personally this was the first Reading Festival I had been to since 2010, a time, I've always felt seen this festival enter a bit of a transition period. This was mainly due to outside factors; Download Festival was spearheading its own expansion, there was the rise of Sonisphere almost out of the blue, etc. As a result, to many, Reading Festival ended up rather lacking in the heavy music department. Some may argue that this is perhaps an unfair judgement; across 2011 and 2012 alone the festival featured the likes of Mastodon, Deftones, Cancer Bats and Eagles Of Death Metal. The Lock-Up was also still in full flow, but the fact is there was just less of it. The idea of 'Reading Rock' Festival seemed to be a million miles away.

Then came 2013's line up and glimpses that another corner was turning in the rich history of this event. Now it didn't suddenly revert back, but a timely expansion and the demise of the short-lived Sonisphere helped the festival really push on and provide one the best, and most diverse line-ups in recent times. It felt like the festival has turned a bit of a corner and mashing together things like Metal and Indie/Dance became a key necessity rather than choosing to favour one over the other. An expansion at the festival has allowed space for more stages causing the Lock-Up divide with Dance tent in recent years to be smashed, instead there are now two days of Lock-Up and one day 'Rock' stage. There is now pretty much a stage for each genre of music, so whatever you feel like at the time the choice is easily there. Making your way through the line up you find yourself picking out some of the better heavier bands, the likes of System Of A Down, Skindred and Nine Inch Nails and thinking they probably would have been at Sonisphere had it still been around. I'm not sure we'll see a return to the days of 'Metal Sunday' on the Main Stage but, as good as Sonisphere was, its fall can only be a good thing for Reading. One thing though, as much as heavy music still has a firm hold on the festival, what the hell happened to the Lock Up Stage? It's been heavily downsized and pushed almost to the corner and out of the way. Bit of a shambles really for such a famous set-up.

Overall then, to complete this very general overview of this year's festival and line-up, fact is, heavier music will never be eradicated from the genes of this event, and the fact that the festival has allowed to become more and more diverse in recent years can only be a good thing. There are not many festivals which can mix together Metalheads, Punks, Ravers and Indie Kids so if they're able to keep that up then this will remain a truly great festival.

Make sure you visit the Live Reviews section to check out all of the key reviews from this year.