Reading Festival: a maelstrom of sound, sweat, and spirit under amicable skies. The legendary weekender, and its northern sister Leeds, pulled in hordes of music fans once again, all fiercely drawn into a lineup that felt akin to flicking through a playlist of the now: The 1975, Arctic Monkeys, Halsey, Dave, and that's just scratching the surface.
As the big stages boomed and mosh pits summoned dust from the soil, Clash was playing its own game of sneaking behind the velvet rope and finding the quieter corners where the sound softens just enough for a moment of reprieve. Last weekend, over the Bank Holiday, photographer Ben McQuaide set up camp at Reading, shooting a very different sort of energy: raw, loose, and honest.
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The adrenaline either hasn't dissipated or hasn't yet taken hold. This was where McQuaide discovered his magic. These are not portraits, but rather visual vignettes, freeze-frames of artists in the liminal zone that exists between performer and person. Pale Waves are looking fierce and loose. bbno$ with that impish glint in his eye. Jord's exuding calm confidence. Poppy, just as mysterious, was caught in the middle of a thought. And more and more.
In an age of Instagram filters and hair meticulously polished to perfection, these portraits stand out in their stillness. They reveal the humanity of what is otherwise promotional hype, the calm before the chaos. Reading Festival 2022 was wild, loud, and unforgettable, but as Ben McQuaide's images bring back, behind every huge set, every crowd roar, there's an artist in a quiet moment. A person. A portrait.
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