Band 'devastated' after being forced to pull out of Reading and Leeds
The 2025 music festival is being held this month, with some of the headliners including Hozier, Chappell Roan, The Kooks and Bring Me the Horizon.
However, one act has now shared they've had to pull the plug on their set.
Sharing the news in a statement on Instagram, House of Protection wrote: 'We are devastated to announce that we will no longer be performing at this year's Reading & Leeds Festivals.
'Most of the funding to make this short trip possible was coming from our performance at the Heavy Music Awards, which unfortunately has been cancelled due to unforeseen and serious health issues affecting a key member of their team.
'Our condolences go out to that team member during this challenging time.' https://www.instagram.com/p/DNOmlYySVtj/
They continued: 'We are deeply sorry to disappoint those who were excited to see us.
'Unfortunately, we simply don't have the resources to make this happen at the moment.
'Your support means everything to us, and we want to assure you that we are already looking forward to making it up to you in the near future (Spain as well). This decision was not easy for us.'
However, they ended by telling fans they would be returning to the UK in October to tour with fellow band, Architects.
Reacting to the cancellation, many people threw their support behind the band.
'It's crazy that a band this amazing can't keep up with its career for financial reasons. This business sucks. Deep deep love for you guys,' Marco commented.
'So thankful I got to see you at Download, but Reading and Leeds won't be the same without you, hope everyone's okay and doing the best they can. Devastated,' Alex shared.
'Absolutely gutted – missed you at download because of clashes, was looking forward to reading! Will have to catch you another time! Know how rough it is for indy artists,' Christina added.
House of Protection formed just last year. Its members – Aric Improta and Stephen Harrison – had originally began their music careers in other bands including Fever 333, Night Verses and The Chariot.
They've described their music style as 'Atlanta trap to UK trip-hop, post-punk and alternative and art-rock'. More Trending
Previously speaking to DIY about coming together after being part of different bands, the pair explained.
'We're in this for the long haul – we're going to outrun everyone,' they said.
In coming months, they are due to play in Amsterdam and London before touring Australia.
Got a story?
If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you.
MORE: Boardmasters Festival 2025 responds to viral claims of spiking and sexual assault
MORE: Sold-out festival gets 2,000 fans to 'give up a kidney' in bid for tickets
MORE: Regatta's summer sale is up to 80% off – and it's perfect for festival season
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Record
10 minutes ago
- Daily Record
Netflix adds 'outstanding' crime series with 96% Rotten Tomatoes score as fans beg for fourth season
Netflix has recently added a new three-season long crime drama which is so good it has viewers skipping sleep to "binge it all night". Netflix has quietly added a brilliant crime thriller series which fans "can't turn off" as they've been left begging for a fourth season of the show. Sneaky Pete, starring Giovanni Ribisi in the leading role, follows the story of con man Marius, who steals the identity of his former cellmate Pete, after being released from prison to escape a dangerous gangster. Marius tricks Pete's family into believing he is their long-lost loved one but he quickly realises that their own secrets and lies could end up making his life as dangerous as the world he was desperately trying to escape. Other stars in the show include Margo Martindale, Bryan Cranston, Libe Barer and Marin Ireland. The American crime drama, co-created by Breaking Bad star Cranston first aired in 2015 but viewers are hooked after it was recently uploaded to Netflix. Sneaky Pete concluded in 2019 after its third season but fans are now begging for a fourth season after complaining the show came to an end too soon. The show, which originally aired on Amazon Prime Video, has been showered with praise as viewers rushed to X to express their surprise at just how good it was. One fan was left questioning how they missed the initial release of the show as they wrote: "Sneaky Pete on Netflix. Watch it. Holy s***. So so good. Don't know how I missed it the first time around." A second exclaimed: "Binge worthy series if you enjoy comedic heists and cons - 'Sneaky Pete' (Amazon Prime and Netflix)." A third chimed in: "Just got thru season 1 of Sneaky Pete and I'm mad no one told me ever hyped this show up????" Somebody else added: "I should be sleep. Up watching Sneaky Pete. Never heard of this show until the other day." Yet another agreed: "All I wanna do is watch Sneaky Pete." Someone else gushed: "Sneaky Pete has all my attention!!!" Another wrote: "Sneaky Pete on Netflix is a great show if you like unexpected turns and being on the edge of your seat." Fans are now begging for a fourth season to be released after many felt the show came to an abrupt end. One wrote: "Just binged watched #sneakypete. I need another series @netflix. Loved every episode." A second echoed: "Sneaky Pete is now on Netflix. Underrated show that ended too soon." The show was renewed for a second season in 2018, three years after its first season debuted so there may be hope for fans yet if enough of a fuss is kicked up about it. Sneaky Pete's release on Netflix came just weeks before actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner's death, who plays the recurring character of Marius' parole officer, James Bagwell, in the show. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. The 54-year-old star tragically passed away on July 20 after an accidental drowning while learning how to surf in Costa Rica. Fans were quick to point out his presence in the show as they took to X to say: "I'm literally finishing season 3 of 'Sneaky Pete', I was so happy to see Malcolm Jamal Warner in it, still looking youthful and vibrant." Another wrote: "I literally threw on Sneaky Pete, never even heard of it, and in comes Malcolm-Jamal Warner", alongside a sad face emoji.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
An expert reveals the five easy ways you can improve your focus and concentration span
If I think back to my childhood, one image leaps out. Me, lying on my bed, absorbed in a book: totally focused and oblivious to the world. I was someone who could concentrate for hours at a time. Not any more, it seems. Back then, I devoured stories. Hazel from Watership Down, Sara Crewe from A Little Princess, Charlie from . These were the characters who walked beside me through childhood and into adolescence, until I was old enough for grown-up classics: Jane Austen, Henry James and the 800-plus pages of George Eliot's .
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘I'm the one to beat': is Taylor Swift's Showgirl era set to take h to even greater heights?
Taylor Swift's podcast interview with her American football player boyfriend, Travis Kelce, this week yielded plenty of tidbits for fans. Across two hours of loose chat on New Heights, the show Kelce helms with his brother Jason – also a football player – Swift revealed she was obsessed with sourdough and lurked on baking blogs. The couple spent the summer with her family, caring for her 73-year-old father, Scott, after he had a quintuple heart bypass. She gave Kelce a lesson on Hamlet and taught him how to avoid internalising speculation about their two-year relationship. You could call them the tentpoles of the 35-year-old pop star's brand: literary passions and professional self-awareness. One surprising revelation came near the end. Until the record-breaking 149-date Eras tour that Swift mounted from 2023-24, she said she had 'never allowed myself to say: 'You've arrived. You've made it.'' Being the only artist to win the Grammy for album of the year four times hadn't done it; not the records broken, the acclaimed shifts from country to mainstream pop to indie. Nor her staggeringly successful campaign to re-record her first six albums to devalue their master recordings, sold by her first record label to an industry nemesis, and then on to a private equity company. 'But the Eras tour,' she said, 'I was like, this is nothing like what I've experienced before. It was so much better than anything else.' Eras leapfrogged becoming the first billion-dollar tour to become the first $2bn tour. That would be plenty of cause for celebration and a good long rest. So would, as Swift announced in May, finally owning the rights to those first six albums, having successfully negotiated to buy the asset outright. (It ended her re-recording project: her 2006 debut is done and waiting, and she barely started 2017's Reputation.) Her legacy isn't just culturally assured, but materially secure. But Swift evidently isn't ready to let that feeling of having 'made it' go. She appeared on New Heights to announce her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, arriving just 18 months after its predecessor and 10 months after Eras concluded: she is apparently congenitally incapable of rest, with a lot to process. The public will – correctly – have long assumed that Swift has well and truly made it like no one ever has. But the record's promised contents, intentions and release strategy are set to make Swift – and Kelce alongside her – hysterically famous at a new level, capitalising on and shifting industry norms in a way that may leave her detractors researching bunkers in which to hide from it all. Swift's new album does not arrive until 3 October, but this week's edition of the industry newsletter Record of the Day led with a tongue-in-cheek congratulations to 'everyone at EMI and Taylor Swift on her latest No 1 album The Life of a Showgirl'. Supernova success is a foregone conclusion: last year's introspective The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) was the first album to pass a billion streams in its first week, reaching 1.76bn. Swift is beloved on an unfathomable scale. She is one of the last monocultural pop stars. You suspect she could have toured Eras for five years and still sold out every night. Her devout Swifties, casual pop fans and curious rubberneckers will likely propel Showgirl past TTPD's record, such is the critical mass behind her, no matter what it sounds like. Her reign, says Annie Zaleski, the author of Taylor Swift: The Stories Behind the Songs, is unprecedented because 'she's so consistent and continuing to evolve'. But on the podcast, Swift sounded surprisingly aware of the limitations of TTPD – too wordy, too long, too downbeat – and keen to course-correct. That project, she said, had been about 'catharsis', 'mess' and 'rawness' following an apparently humiliating fling with the 1975's Matty Healy. TTPD comprised 16 songs; and on release day, Swift dropped a previously unannounced 15-track sister album, The Anthology. For Showgirl, she said she craved 'focus and discipline': just 12 songs going behind the scenes of her Eras life, with 'melodies that were so infectious you're almost angry'. She made a surprising admission about her recent quality control: 'Keeping the bar really high is something I've been wanting to do for a very long time.' Swift recorded Showgirl with the Swedish co-producers Max Martin and Shellback in Stockholm around Eras' spring 2024 European run. The second of her three dates in the Swedish capital was the 89th date of the Eras tour: she named her fifth album, partly produced by the Swedes, 1989 after her birth year. Given the endless number games she plays, sowing numerology clues for fans setting up her future movements, you can assume the scheduling was no accident. Martin and Shellback co-produced Red (2012), 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017), homes to her biggest pure-pop smashes, among them Style, 22, and Blank Space. Her first subsequent album without them, 2019's playful Lover, was regarded as ending that imperial period. Since then, Swift's music has grown more muted and experimental, often in collaboration with the producers Jack Antonoff and the National's Aaron Dessner, as if she were trying to carve out a sustainable future for a 30-something songwriter: 2020's folksy Folklore and Evermore, the dusky pop of 2022's Midnights, TTPD. They spawned no comparable radio hits; her biggest in recent years is Lover's Cruel Summer, never officially released as a single but adopted as a fan favourite. Swift now seems to be framing those records as a phase – her art school years. The Showgirl era seems to be an attempt to recapture the kind of musical ubiquity where little kids yell your lyrics at birthday parties, as they did with 2014's Shake It Off and now do with songs such as Chappell Roan's Hot to Go! 'My business is making music and taking care of my fans and I have ways of monitoring what they want from me and how best to entertain them, which is my job,' she told the Kelces. Eras was divided into segments reflecting each of her albums (except her 2006 debut): imagine it as a 149-night focus group. Swift's monitoring also cannot have failed to note that her brand of hermetically sealed, grown-up pop has been ceding ground to Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and Charli xcx, who have seized culture's centre with less inhibited and far rowdier hits than the exacting Swift has ever made. Or perhaps ever could: one insurmountable difference is that Roan and xcx are unlikely to ever monitor fan desire or cater to it. And Martin, despite being second only to John Lennon and Paul McCartney for having the most US No 1 singles, has waned as a hitmaker. 'I don't think she can get ahead of those artists because she's such a millennial pop star,' said a publicist for comparably superstar acts who asked to remain nameless. 'She can't create trends like those younger artists because they have a lot less to lose.' There is a sense that Swift is catching up: that she's clocked criticisms, read the room. She released 19 physical variants for TTPD, and was accused of exploiting fans and damaging the environment with excess vinyl production, a practice Billie Eilish has called 'wasteful'. Showgirl appears to have a fairly industry-standard four. She is also competing with herself: if there is a tour, says the music business expert Eamonn Forde, it will have to take a significantly different form to Eras – residency-style, perhaps Vegas or in a bespoke venue, as recently done by Adele – to avoid unfavourable comparisons to the biggest tour of all time. Swift drew mass media coverage for her appearances at Kelce's games with the Kansas City Chiefs, prompting some aggrieved football fans to boo whenever she appeared on the jumbotron. In a trailer for her episode of New Heights, traditionally a sports show, Swift joked: 'I think we all know that if there's one thing that male sports fans want to see in their spaces and on their screens, it's more of me.' Unluckily for them, the brand-building between Kelce and Swift looks set to make their association unavoidable. New Heights is part of their lore: after Kelce tried and failed to land a meeting with Swift after an Eras show, he told listeners he wanted to meet her. Intrigued, she took him up on it. The synchronicity began. It can be no mistake that Kelce's cover of GQ magazine landed the same week as Swift's podcast. Meanwhile, Swift rarely gives interviews: New Heights offers a mutually beneficial space where the couple wield full control, albeit with a soft touch: giving cute disclosures, such as his love of wild otters or her running to tell him about getting her masters back when he was gaming with the boys. The moment capitalised on the prevailing trend for A-listers to reserve their media engagements for fairly fannish video podcasts, making traditional journalists fear for their jobs as they dutifully write up any news lines. Premiering Wednesday night in the US, the episode livestream crashed; within 24 hours it had 13m YouTube views, not including other podcast platform stats. The value to advertisers is huge, especially in anticipation of future Swift revelations. And Kelce, a comparatively old player at 35, is rumoured to be retiring after the coming season – his 13th year, Swift's lucky number – so will be power-brokering his post-game career. He admitted to GQ he had literally taken his eye off the ball, with underwhelming stats in his past two seasons, because he was chasing other opportunities. 'It's his Steven Bartlett, Diary of a CEO move,' said the publicist. 'It's future-proofing their lives. He can't be a football player for ever; she can't be a pop star for ever. It makes them a unit – look at how it worked for the Beckhams.' After a backlash around 2015-16 resulting from her beef with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, Swift managed to convincingly reboot her brand: a dedicated, literary songwriter who fights for artists' rights. To onlookers outside the NFL, Kelce's is ripe for shaping from two years of dating Swift. The couple are clearly conscious of this: Kelce told GQ he had 'become way more strategic in understanding what I am portraying to people', something you may imagine constitutes pillow talk in a business-minded household. 'No man has ever said those words,' said the publicist. Kelce's image is openhearted romantic. Notably, he is Swift's first significant boyfriend to seem undaunted by her celebrity – her previous six-year relationship with the British actor Joe Alwyn took place almost entirely in private. A sweet aspect of the New Heights episode was two beefy jocks being so excited by and supportive of a girly pop star. Swift joked of his public entreaty to date her that 'this is sort of what I've been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager'. The couple riffed on memes questioning Kelce's intelligence – 'it's so hot when she says big words,' he said when Swift called Folklore 'esoteric' – which is in itself very smart: positioning Kelce as lovable and non-threatening. Swift said she immediately warmed to him for not being 'judgmental', describing him as 'a vibe booster in everyone's life … like a human exclamation point'. The implication is that he could pep up your sentences if you let him into your heart. Kelce's post-football business is being everyone's boyfriend, not just Swift's. His pesky family ties to Maga Trumpists won't hurt him in the US; if Swift, who endorsed Kamala Harris in the last election, were to be questioned about this, 'her argument can be that she's the leftwing voice in these rooms', the publicist said. Win-win. Although Swift seemed keen to establish some distance from the voluble TTPD era, a song from The Anthology about her and Kelce's relationship seems to outline her present mindset. 'I'm making a comeback to where I belong,' she sings on The Alchemy. 'Ditch the clowns, get the crown / Baby, I'm the one to beat … These blokes warm the benches / We've been on a winning streak.' That streak is assured: next year marks the 20th anniversary of Swift's self-titled debut, and she will inevitably release the re-recording to mark the occasion. Showgirl's successor will be her 13th album, a significant moment in her lore. There are rumours of a behind-the-scenes Eras documentary to complement the record-breaking concert movie, extending the moment's IP. Any new tour will once again recalibrate the live industry. Before Swift drops a note of music, or Kelce touches grass, they're the coming season's reigning champions.
