Nick soaks up the Reading sun, the moon rises over the festival site, Jude grins cheesily in the Carling Tent ...
Friday
Despite pre-arrival concerns about the state of the site (what with it being right next to the River Thames, on a flood plain, and having been knee-deep in flood water just a matter of weeks ago) we were relieved and delighted, on arrival, to see a distinct lack of water/mud/bogginess, and got ourselves set up and raring to go in record time. First band of the weekend, in the Carling Tent, were Bombay Bicycle Club, a bunch of very energetic youngsters who had seemingly got their entire school to turn out in their support. This made for a brilliant, buzzy atmosphere to kick off proceedings, with everyone singing, shouting and clapping along to their every song. Next we zipped over to the NME/Radio One Tent for Sounds. Having adored the remixed version of Tony The Beat on record, we were left rather disappointed by their non-stop-electro-pop party music, none of which really kicked off, and which became, frankly, rather dull a few songs into the set. We were even thinking Roxette towards the end - eek!
Back to Carling next for Be Your Own Pet spin-offs Turbo Fruits. Despite the lead singer's disconcerting resemblence to Luke Kook (see photo, right) this set of bluesy garage-rock was much more fun, spoilt only by a sludgey quality to the sound, and some ill-judged falsetto on a couple of songs (including an MC5 Kick Out The Jams cover).
Next saw one of the day's highlight sets, still in the Carling Tent. Before the festival
we hadn't really heard much about Manchester Orchestra, so were not necessarily expecting anything very much from this bunch of bearded youngsters. In fact, they delivered a really beautiful set of moving, emotional (in the non-emo sense of the word) songs, with a gorgeous heart-broken vocal, sort of like a less mannered Conor Oberst. Here's what they looked like (see photo, left).Next it was briefly over to the Lock-Up Tent for a bit of tame singalong "punk" from The Draft, before heading back to NME/Radio One Tent to remind ourselves of how much we enjoy The Horrors live, despite their slightly foolish/pantomime image. The energy of their psycho-Cramps schtick is always considerably better than you think it's going go be, and for this, we shall continue to appreciate them.
Alberta Cross are country rock-ish dudes who sound pretty derivative in a 70s southern rock way, and who look like this (see photo, right). After their set we indulged in a little bit of sunshine to the musical accompaniment of Jimmy Eat World (the acceptable, harmonious face of emo) who were playing the Main Stage, before moving back to the Lock Up for Capdown, who were unfortunately let down a bit by the dodgy sound (at least from where we were standing). This didn't seem to stop them going down a total storm with the Lock Up crowd, mind you.
We finished our first day by checking out the big buzz that seemed to be collecting in the NME/Radio One Tent for Enter Shikari - often described as metal-meets-rave. Unfortunately, they just sounded like dressed-up thrash metal, to us, and didn't really live up to the hype.
Sunshine + early starts the day before + childish over-excitement unfortunately now all conspired to bring on the headache-from-hell, so we retired early to our campsite, to gather our strength for the next day.
Saturday
Bright eyed and bushy tailed once more, Saturday dawned with our first (and obligatory) Steve Lamacq-sighting of the festival, just in front of us in the audience for Carling Tent openers Pete and the Pirates. This was upbeat, unchallenging, full of "oh-ohs" and the like, and a good way to start the day. Their single sounded great live, and was a fab way to end their set.
Next up were siblings-and-cousins Texans Eisley. With the beautiful voices and three-part harmonies sounding every bit as lush live as on record they were impressive, but they do suffer a little from the "samey-ness" of a lot of their songs, and their set palled a little by the end. They are a good-looking bunch, mind you! (see photo, left).
We then caught the tail-end of The Teenagers' set (which didn't sound massively exciting, based on the one and a half songs that we heard....), before leaping around enjoyably to Crystal Castles in the Dance Tent. Think Klaxons-meet-Bow Wow Wow (ravey plus yelpy female vocals), and ace fun. Following this, the wonderfully-named Does It Offend You, Yeah? didn't live up to the magnificence of their moniker. This could just be our anti-vocoder prejudice showing through again, but they didn't quite do it for us, despite having a lot of the elements that ought to have made them enjoyable.
Quite possibly the highlight of the whole weekend followed, in the form of The Shins, in the blazing sunshine, on the Main Stage. Somehow they managed to create a wonderful mood of intimacy and warmth despite the impersonal setting (our usual problem with Main Stage acts), and their gorgeous indie jangle worked perfectly with the weather. An absolute joy, from start to finish (see photo, right).
Back to the Dance Tent (which had its best line-up in a long time, this year) for Shy Child next, whose keetar-and-drums stop/start repetitive danceable stuff kept us on our high, only to be brought down again by the dreadful Cobra Starship in the Carling Tent, who sounded like - gulp - Bon Jovi, and who's main claim to fame seems to be having provided a song for the Snakes on a Plane soundtrack. Hmmm....
Much, MUCH better were Tokyo Police Club, like The Strokes with a better singer. They have a fine collection
of perky new wave songs with snappy endings, and they were yet another highlight of the day. As, indeed, was a storming set from grungey curmudgeon veterans Dinosaur Jr. who, for us, justified the ticket price singlehandedly by their inclusion of Feel The Pain. Next were Silversun Pickups in the Carling Tent, who played a sort of accessible stoner rock which went down a treat, and reminded us a little of Secret Machines, previous Reading favourites of ours. Definitely a band we are now keen to investigate on record (see photo, left).
Moving swiftly on, yet another storming set was in store for us, by Battles (not to be confused with the much less interesting Battle). Having been pretty much awe-struck when we saw them at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in May, we were equally impressed this time round. They manage to produce highly intelligent experimental music that is, at the same time, ferociously danceable and downright fun. Clever, innovative yet also hugely accessible, they are truly something special (see photo, right).
We ended our evening still in dancey mode with !!!'s infectious punk-funk in the Dance Tent, which was great. A really really amazing day was had by all - probably one of the single best days we've ever had at Reading, in terms of the sheer number of outstanding sets from outstanding bands, and variety of genres.
Sunday
We starte
d off the day in the Carling Tent (pretty much our natural habitat during Reading) for a big of dumb greaser-punk-pub-rock from the highly insanitary looking Stalkers, who won many friends in the audience by their liberal gifts of cans of lager and band t-shirts (see photo, left). We were pretty unmoved by Late of the Pier, despite their "next big thing" billing in some quarters. They seem to chuck in so many different sounds, instruments, beats etc into each track that the overall effect just becomes a little wearing after a while. Overdoing the eclecticism a bit, we felt.Pull Tiger Tail, up next, win the Rhythm Most Likely To Be Massive By This Time Next Year award (previous recipients have included The Kaiser Chiefs, so we do have a bit of a track record). The infectious beats, synths, 80s vibe and catchy tunes surely make
them a shoo-in for big things. Also - how could you not warm to a band who throw tiger masks into the crowd! A bit of a split opinion next, for Hadouken! Jude thought they gave the stand-out performance of the whole festival, with their incredible, full-on, grindie-hard-electrogrime, whereas Nick was less impressed. Definitely a love-or-hate kind of a band, but trust us: if you enjoy them live you will really really enjoy them, to the point of being reduced to a dumb grinning ninny by the end (see photo, right).The tedious Rep
ublic of Loose gave us their lame white-boy plodding funk next, from which we swiftly extricated ourselves to catch a bit more (sigh) generic US punk from Ignite in the Lock Up Tent. Much more like it were proper punks The Casualties, who put in an ace shouty slogan-packed and political set, despite being minus their lead singer. Possible winners of the Best Haircuts of the Weekend award, too (see photo, left).Kubichek! in the Carling Tent just sounded like run of the mill, workmanlike, indie, without much to greatly recommend it, and Funeral for a Friend on the Main Stage were boring. We had another split decision for Cold War Kids, who Nick really likes, but who Jude couldn't
get on with (it's the weedy, whiney vocal that puts her off). Dwarves, in the Lock Up, make music that is much less hardcore than their image would lead you to expect, but - conversely - Devendra Banhart produced one of the day's highlights by being better than we'd anticipated: beautiful, accessibly, cheerful sunshine music, with the occasional Spanish lyrics and Hawaiian guitar sounds adding to the holiday vibe (see photo, right).Gallows enlivened their shouty hardcore set by the lead singer's onstage antics: getting a souvenir Reading 07 tattoo by Chad from New Found Glory and bringing his Mum and other brother onstage, in front of a rammed Lock Up Tent crowd. It is hard, musically, to really see what has made them stand out from many other bands who are doing similar stuff, though. Better publicists? Mouthier front man? Who knows. Turbonegro were just metal in fancy dress, as far as we could make out, so it was back to the safety of the indie-tastic Carling Tent for Peter, Bjorn and John whose lovely harmonious music is in a similar
ballpark to The Magic Numbers, and whose (yet again to be re-released) single Young Folks actually sounded better without the guest vocal (see photo, left).Finally, The Hold Steady rounded of our weekend in fine style. Rarely have we witnessed a front man who is obviously just so damned delighted to be where he is, on stage, singing and dancing to his (and his audience's) heart's content (see photo, right).
So that was it for another vintage year's festival. We had such a bloody great time that we've already booked for next year. Roll on August 2008!
