By Del Crookes at Reading and Steve Holden at Leeds Newsbeat reporters Kasabian repeated their headline performance at Reading to bring Sunday night to a close at Leeds.
Reading and Leeds organiser Melvin Benn told Newsbeat the Leicester band were a "commanding headliner".
Meanwhile, Foo Fighters headlined Reading Festival for the first time since 2005.
I would say this year's Reading and Leeds have been the calmest and easiest we've produced in a long long time
Melvin Benn Reading and Leeds organiser
The US band played for more than two-and-a-half hours and dedicated These Days to former Nirvana band mates Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic.
Front man Dave Grohl also revealed the 26-song set would be the final gig in support of their seventh studio album Wasting Light.
Speaking on stage he said it would be "the last show of the tour and the last show for a long time".
During a busy set, Grohl got the crowd to sing happy birthday to his mother and dedicated one track each to his daughters Violet and Harper.
He also dedicated the entire set to retiring BBC sound engineer Miti Adhikari, who has recorded shows including Nirvana's appearance at Reading Festival in 1992.
Meanwhile before Kasabian at Leeds Festival, Florence + The Machine played a set on the main stage which included Dog Days Are Over, her recent number one single, Spectrum (Say My Name), and Shake It Out.
The weather, which was dry as the sun set opposite the stage, was in stark contrast to the downpour which accompanied her performance in Reading.
The Foo Fighters closed out the main stage at Reading
With the festival coming to a close Florence cheekily told the crowd: "It's your last chance to do something you regret."
At the Drive-In headlined the NME/Radio 1 Stage.
Other acts who played across Sunday at Leeds included Odd Future, Metronomy and Azealia Banks, who delivered a short 20-minute set.
The US star, who came third in the Sound of 2012 poll, ended her performance with a raucous version of her hit 212.
Assessing 2012's festival, Melvin Benn said events had gone "extremely smoothly".
"I would say this year's Reading and Leeds have been the calmest and easiest we've produced in a long long time," he said.
Speaking about Sunday's acts, Melvin Benn said Florence + the Machine was "clearly going to be a headliner in the future".
'Anything possible'
Another band tipped by Benn were The Black Keys, who played before Foo Fighters on the main stage at Reading.
Front man Dan Auerbach told Newsbeat he could see his band topping the bill one day.
This year’s Reading bill looks over-familiar from top to bottom, faithfully reflecting a rock scene desperately waiting for new heroes. Foo Fighters, Kasabian and The Cure aren’t headliners to quicken the blood; the latter first played here in 1979. But Reading’s importance in comparison to upstart, upmarket boutique affairs still feels strong. It remains the muddy field where young people first get off the leash and off their faces to music.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl leers on Sunday, at the festival that fits him best. His most infamous Reading appearance remains Nirvana’s swansong 20 years ago, with Kurt Cobain in a wheelchair. This three-hour blow-out is more wholesome hard rock with every edge smoothed off, like being bludgeoned with a toy hammer. Stuttering, contemplative passages in songs such as “Breakout” barely slow their relentless, quickly redundant stride.
Midwest blues-rockers The Black Keys, preceding the Foos, could at their most ordinary have played Reading in 1972. “Nova Baby”’s staccato soul swing is among the recent songs giving them saving, danceable grace.
Kasabian are received as a triumph on Saturday, but singer Tom Meighan comes across as an ageing Oasis fan, not a rock star. Their hollow empire is doomed to fall. Before them, Florence + the Machine are inspired by wild weather, singer Florence, in a fishnet body-suit, finishing rain-streaked and happy. Friday’s headliners The Cure take up 150 minutes, and Robert Smith is in wonderful voice. But “In Between Days”’s delicacy of feeling doesn’t last, during a set whose length smashes holes in the crowd.
Green Day’s surprise gig at 11am on Saturday, as many festival-goers slumber, is the nearest thing to an event. Equivalent punk power, though, is available in the Lock Up tent throughout the weekend. This is where Reading’s rock heart beats, indifferent to trends and headliners. Pittsburgh’s Anti-Flag dedicate The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” to Pussy Riot and Joe Strummer. They’re followed by California’s Social Distortion, Green Day grandfathers who began in 1978. Only singer Mike Ness remains from then, a soft-spoken elder statesman, his anger now worn and restrained. Their cow-punk version of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” is one festival peak.
Graham Coxon, back to his solo day job after Blur’s big day out at Hyde Park, finds the most creative response to rock’s history, gently bending and pulling apart The Who’s hard R’n’B on “Feel Alright”, and finishing with “I Don’t Wanna Go On”’s strange, bucking take on country-blues.
In a festival mostly geared to music’s passive consumption, Anti-Flag suggest the punk gig experience is an ideal of responsible yet fiercely individual living. Peckham’s Katy B offers a similar philosophy for dance music, and post-rave and pop sounds which would once have been urine-bottled off here are now part of Reading. Look no further than Lady Lykez’s hilarious paen to the weave, “Not My Hair”.
Edinburgh’s Django Django, too, combine wistful vocals, tribal drums and techno synths to become a sort of rave Franz Ferdinand, capable of constant surprise. Swedish-American freaks Miike Snow, meanwhile, deploy ecstatic dance music clichés with cosmic intent, on “The Devil’s Work” recalling Mercury Rev.
The Vaccines are part of the current British rock scene’s problem, all defeatist, ironic disaffection. The lie to that can still be found on the outer stages at night, where The Cribs offer advice to live by at Reading. “Get piercings, set fire to your tent,” orders singer Ryan Jarman. Then he adds, with faith defying current facts: “This is the best festival.”
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Today wrapped up a weekend of big-ticket performances at the concurrent Reading and Leeds music festivals in the U.K., with some particularly newsworthy highlights over the three-day run coming courtesy of a trio of American acts: Green Day, the Foo Fighters and notorious L.A. rap collective Odd Future.
- Billie Joe Armstrong and co. hit the Reading Festival with a "surprise" appearance on Saturday, though rumors that the pop-punk act would be performing their breakthrough album "Dookie" in its entirety proved to be unfounded. Nevertheless, the rockers did manage to play five tracks from the 1994 LP, with favorites including "Welcome to Paradise," "Basket Case" and "She" included in the set. The wide-ranging performance featured tracks spanning the entirety of their (major-label) career, in addition to highlighting two tunes from "Uno!," the first part of the group's forthcoming three-album trilogy. One of these was a never-before-heard track titled "Stay the Night," and you can check out their performance of the song at the bottom of the page.
- The Foo Fighters, meanwhile, wowed the Reading Festival audience this evening with a whopping two-and-a-half-hour, 26-song performance that saw a reflective Dave Grohl commemorating both the conclusion of the band's "Wasting Light" tour ("It's the last show of the tour and it's the last show for a long time," he stated as they took the stage) and the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's headlining slot at the 1992 incarnation of the festival. Though rumors that Grohl would be covering one of the band's tunes proved to be unfounded, he did dedicate a performance of recent Foo Fighters single "These Days" to his former bandmates, stating: "I'd like to dedicate this song to a couple of people who couldn't be here tonight. This one's for Krist and this one's for Kurt.''
- The vibe was radically different over at Odd Future's closing-night Leeds Festival performance, which saw the group once again courting controversy by dragging a bound-and-gagged blow up doll named "Kimberly" on stage and proceeding to beat the tar out of it whilst hurling some choice invectives "her" way. The spectacle - which followed Tyler, the Creator and Left Brain's tussle with security guards during the group's Reading performance the previous night - climaxed with Jasper Dolphin busting the doll's head open with his foot while proclaiming: "Sh** I just killed Kimberly." The group also performed some songs.
Thoughts on any of the above performances? Sound off below.
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