If you’re going to experience a music festival to the full, you have to do things properly. The camping, the mud, the rain, the complete absence of a good night’s sleep, warmth, showers, usable toilets — in fact, any sort of basic hygiene — and good, hot food, are all essential parts of the festival experience. If you don’t spend three days covered in mud and with suspected hepititis at the end of it all, well, you’ve just not done things properly.
This is why I spent the Reading festival staying in a beautiful countryside farmhouse, sleeping every night in the world’s most comfortable bed, with a fresh, full-English breakfast every morning, a hot shower and a clean set of clothes and teeth. A short car drive to get into Reading and then a relaxing boat trip along the river Thames to get to the festival. How stupid do you think I am?
There had been plenty of scaremongering about the festival this year — carparks were supposedly underneath the Thames, the festival was supposedly a swamp, and 50 Cent was apparently headlining the main stage for an hour. By the time we got there, though, we found few problems. I admit that the first day was incredibly muddy, and on a few occasions I nearly lost my boots, but the sun came out for the following two days and dried the place up nicely, so instead of mud, we had dust, and dust is smaller than mud and thus not as bad.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been to the festival, but in many ways it was more educational than before, for instance:
- there is a fine line between one man starting a mosh, and one man just pushing you like a git.
- everyone is taller than me, particularly those between myself and the stage.
- loud music is all well and good, but only as long as the person singing is at least equally loud. Otherwise it’s just an instrumental. Sons and Daughters, and The Futureheads, this is aimed at you.
Musical highlights
I didn’t get to see everyone I’d planned to; Goldie Lookin’ Chain had been placed in the 12noon slot on Friday, so we’d missed them by a good three hours, along with Reel Big Fish and Pink Grease, due to the joy of the M25. I had planned to see The Darkness, but by the end of Friday I decided I’d rather just go to bed. I had planned to see The White Stripes, but by the end of Saturday, I decided I’d rather just go to bed. I had planned to see Supergrass and the Von Bondies, but…well, you see where I’m going with this. I admit quite freely, here and now, that I am a big wuss, but really, my body just wasn’t built for this sort of activity. If only real life was like TiVo.
Other sets I missed because of schedule clashes; Graham Coxen, Super Furry Animals, Peaches, Kasabian, The Shins, The Duke Spirit, The Glitterati, The Kills, The Others…it’s very easy to get excited about the line-up at a festival, but you always have to remember that there’s just no way you can see everyone you want to see, and as you can’t even get a schedule until you’re there you have to cull bands with a certain amount of ruthlessness. Of those that I did, see, though…
Friday (I’m in love)
Friday saw me taking in The Wildhearts, The Hives, Ash, and The Offspring, along with The Subways and a bit of The Departure, and of the latter two, I can say nothing; we only saw them because we’d finally arrived and had to see something, and I don’t even remember if I liked them or not. The Wildhearts were new to me but were excellent, despite technical problems leading to them only having a vocalist and a single guitarist at one point. The Hives…well, I love their music, but their lead singer is a tit, and made several ill-advised attempts to drum up some enthusiasm from the dank, muddy crowd by being annoying at them, with limited success. Perhaps it’s because he’s European, and it was all lost on us.
Ash were as good as you would expect Ash to be, with the added bonus of both Charlotte Hatherley’s bullet-nipples and Har Mar Superstar’s stage invasion. Also, they set fire to a guitar, but I didn’t actually see that bit, despite being there the whole time. Still, Rock ‘n’ Roll, eh? Raa.
There was The Offspring as well. Perhaps I wasn’t in the correct frame of mind, what with me being, you know, an adult, but I clearly wasn’t getting as much out of them as the crowd was. I recognised only about a third of the songs they played…at least I got to hear Pretty Fly for a White Guy, which I do like a lot. I was also forced back a couple of times; it turns out that my Room 101 is me, being surrounded by tall, enthusiastic, drunk Offspring fans who all want to mosh with me. Yurk.
Saturday (wait)
Having now managed to get my hands on the prrrrrrecious schedule, I decided that Saturday would be spent parked before the main stage, for Razorlight, New York Dolls, Franz Ferdinand, The Libertines, and Morrissey, with only a brief diversion in the middle of the afternoon for The Ordinary Boys. It was a much better day in terms of weather, and the sun even came out for a good, ooh, 30 minutes — just long enough to sunburn my nose. We again managed to miss the 12noon slots, missing out on The 5, 6, 7, 8s, but as they were playing that Carling advert all through the festival, we didn’t think we’d missed out on much. We had some spare time, and so nosed around the stalls and shops, and I got myself a lovely green corduroy jacket which I would be thankful of later, and found a place that did a decent cup of tea. We also discovered Zoot Woman, who we liked.
Razorlight were great, though lead singer Johnny Borrell loves himself far too much. It’s behaviour I can forgive if I’m seeing a solo artist, but I was there to see Razorlight, not just their lead singer. I can’t imagine it will be long before it becomes 'Johnny Borrell and The Razorlights' or somesuch. Anyway, he’s a prat, and if I see him in the street, I’ll tell him so. To his face. Yeah.
New York Dolls came next, a welcome break from the youthful arrogance of The Hives and Johnny Borrell, and they were excellent — how could they not have been? It’s the fucking New York Dolls, still rocking despite having lost four of their original line-up. See them now, before they’re all dead. It’s the NEW YORK DOLLS!
The Ordinary Boys came next, in the Radio One tent. Unfortunately the tent was packed, and I could only vaguely see the band, and then only if their bassist stood in front of a blinding spotlight. I could hear them, though, and liked them well enough, though I perhaps wouldn’t make an effort to see them again. This is one of the benefits of going to a festival; you can sample a load of bands and determine whether you want to see them do a full set at a later time. Franz Ferdinand followed, and played songs from their album as well as some new material that had only been written a couple of days before. Franz are up there with the New York Dolls in terms of showmanship and respecting the crowd; I found that the bands that graciously accepted their applause at the end of their set, and took a bow, were far better to watch than the bands with arrogant frontmen demanding attention. Both the Dolls, and Franz, and later on Morrissey as well, introduced all of the band members — it’s a nice touch, and reminds us that a truly successful band is one that acts as a whole, and not just as a support mechanism for the vocalist.
Skipped The Libertines to go and have some food and a toilet break. I’m told they were pretty good — the band, that is, not my food and toilet break — but I wasn’t too bothered about missing them. Besides, Libertines fans can be a scarily obsessive crowd.
Finally, it was Morrissey. Playing a mixture heavily skewed towards his latest album, plus a peppering of re-worked Smiths' classics. He was one of the best acts I saw all weekend — polite and friendly towards the crowd, a brilliant performer, and I look forward to seeing him again sometime.
Sunday (always comes too late)
The last day of the festival arrived, and for me that day it was the Radio One tent that held the most appeal, starting with The Futureheads, then the Fiery Furnaces, Dogs Die in Hot Cars, The Stills, dEUS, British Sea Power, Auf der Maur, The Von Bondies and Supergrass, with a break in the middle of the day for The Streets. Mmph. It didn’t quite turn out that way, though. The Futureheads I like, but their set wasn’t so good — the songs were drowned out by their own volume, but I’ll be seeing them again supporting The Zutons, so hopefully they’ll be better then. The Fiery Furnances I’d seen before, supporting Franz Ferdinand, and they’d played a disappointing medley of their own songs with no break inbetween tracks. It was a terrible way of performing, as if they were just in a hurry to get out of there, and they unfortunately played exactly the same here, even with the songs in the same order. If this is how they are live all the time, I can’t see why anybody would bother seeing them more than once. Just buy their CD instead.
Dogs Die in Hot Cars were superb, but The Stills were dreadful and dEUS dropped out, so I went for a wander to see Sons and Daughters, who I’d also seen supporting Franz, and disliked. Always happy to give a band a second chance, though, and they were in the process of growing on me slightly — like a fungus — when I was texted to find that The Streets had started their set early, to fill the gap caused by The Rasmus being HILARIOUSLY bottled off after just one song. So I, and most of the crowd watching Sons and Daughters, immediately poured out to get to the main stage. Surely it would have made more sense to have the main stage empty until it was time for The Streets, instead of fucking up the schedule and not telling anybody? Not even the useless Orange text alerts had informed me of this change. Anyway, The Streets were great, and I particularly enjoyed their spin on Kelis’ ‘Milkshake’.
A brief experiment with The Lost Prophets reminded me of my age and I wandered to the Carling tent to see Secret Machines, who I vaguely recognised but turned out to be slightly too shouty for my liking. Then came the mighty British Sea Power, complete with stuffed birds and foliage. One of the highlights of my festival experience, the crowd was filled with people dressed in World War 2 naval and air force uniforms and lugging branches about (it makes more sense if you know the band), and although they played no new material, it was wonderful anyway.
Finally — as I’d realised I was going to be too knackered to stay for the Von Bondies and Supergrass by this stage — it was Auf der Maur, led by Meliisa Auf der Maur, an adorable and excitable Canadian woman who took photos of the crowd taking photos of her. Courtney who? Also, I found out that 50 Cent (approximately 29 pence in real money) had also been bottled off the stage. In fact, he’d also been camping chaired and inflatable crocodiled off the stage, which is something I wish I’d seen.
Monday (blue)
And then, it was over, and I took the train back to sunny Canterbury. Well, sunny Ashford — Canterbury was under a perpetual black cloud, which is quite telling. It had been a good festival, though I do wish I’d not been so tired that I’d missed The White Stripes, the Von Bondies, and Supergrass, and I can only imagine how knackered I’d have been if I’d tried to spend the weekend in a tent. I see tickets are on sale already for Reading 2005…hmmm. Tempting.