Pint-sized rockers The Mini Band to open Reading stage

A pint-sized band of rockers who earned Metallica’s seal of approval are set to open The Pit Stage at today’s Reading festival.

And the five-piece group – known as The Mini Band – will get the chance to meet Main Stage headliners Metallica backstage.

The group’s members – aged between 12 and 14 and from Newbury in Berkshire – took the internet by storm when their version of Enter Sandman went viral four years ago after their music teacher posted it online.

At the time, Metallica filmed a video message for the band, with drummer Lars Ulrich saying: “You guys rock. You guys are cool, maybe one day we can work something out and open up for you all if you’ll have us.”

The youngsters learned this week that they’d play at Reading and meet Metallica when BBC presenter Sally Taylor gave them the news.

Guitarist Harry Esson tells the BBC: “It’s amazing for us as kids to play Reading, for us it’s so unorthodox. It’s incredible.”

The Mini Band will play on The Pit Stage at 11.30am today (Saturday).

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.