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Reading Festival 2006 (Sunday)

redsoxrockmyworld — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 19:21:25 +0000

So, the final instalment, and I promise it will be more exciting than the conclusion of the Lord of the Rings triology (but lets face it, that doesn't talke much does it?...as Randal says, it's just three movies about people walking). However, I cannot promise it will be more exciting than Back To The Future Part 3 cos that film is amazing.

****SPOILER - this blog contains scenes of a slightly sick nature****

Sunday. I woke up and felt monumentally ill. It wasn't though drinking too much, I hadn't touched a drop all weekend (I have this thing about actually wanting to remember something I have paid £140 for). So I started to feel better, then I ate a Sausage sandwich and had a glass of orange juice (remember these because they may make a reappearance) and felt even better. Claire's daddio took us and I began to feel ill again. This was nothing to do with Claire's dad or his driving (which is good), just the sausage fighting back. So when we got out by the bootleg t-shirts, Claire was upset to see the Weezer tee she had her eye on had been sold to probably the only over Weezer fan (apart from me, Claire and Claire's ex) in the country. I was just trying not to yack up on my pretty wellies which some kind souls purchased me for my birthday. I decided that the illness was due to little sleep (due to the undisclosed charity work) and decided to sleep when I got to the tent. We got lots for free stuff on the way in and we found our tent and I climbed in and lay down, the uncomfortable floor of Friday night was starting to look pretty damm good. Sarah and Claire went off to see Taking Back Sunday (why?) but I had already seen them at Green Day, they're ok, but kind of emo and kind of jumped one the huge emo bandwagon which was already way too full. So I slept on and off until Claire and Sarah returned and we chatted for a bit. I decided to get up and go and see GLC but the moment I got up I felt like I was gonna hurl, so I went back to being passed out on my back... ...I woke up, dived for the zips and yacked, narrowly missing the guy lines of Kathryn's tent. I covered it up with a paper plate because Claire doesn't like sick. I texted Sarah requesting she save a polo for me, she guessed I had been sick, because naturally we are pyshicly (sp?) linked. They came back and Claire refused to enter the tent for fear I would be sick on her. I had my polo, infact Sarah gave me the entire packet, I must really have smelt. They told me how they had seen Slayer which, funnily enough, neither of them enjoyed very much, and how they hadn't been overly impressed with emo-band-waggoners, TBS. With GLC they were split. Claire (like me) thinks they are awesome, and we were the hardcores at the Feeder Hammersmith gig who knew all the words. Sarah isn't so keen, even though she used to work in Sports "Chav land" Soccer and is therefore familiar with the tracksuit, being that it is her uniform. I dragged myself up and out of the tent to watch Placebo, because there was NO WAY I was missing Pearl Jam, who were due on after. We located ourselves in our usual spot, left of the stage. They were pretty damm good. I got a free Placebo badge before the show, which cheered me up no end. They played a bunch of tunes I didn't know but still enjoyed and some that I knew, "Every Me, Every You" and "The Bitter End". One of their amps broke too, so for ten minutes the audience entertained themselves by cheering women to flash when the camera was on them..this wasn't really a high point for me, but the men seemed to like it. Brian and co cam back on, did some tunes and finished with "Nancy Boy", and Stefan smashed up his bass, waste you fool! I would have had it if you didn't want it. Claire then departed to watch Maximo Park and I went and bought an orange ice lolly (for £2!!) in the hope it would make me feel better. Me and Sarah then found a nice man with a fire made of Carling cups which he kindly let us stand round for the price if a few cups. Pearl Jam. Oh my God. I saw Pearl Jam. They came on the the intro from "Even Flow" and rocked the house. Eddie Vender did this speech about looking after each other, and if anyone gets crushed that they can stop the show in an instant. I thought this was kinda strange, but it turns out some people died at one of their shows about 5 years ago. He seemed like a really great guy. I'm only really familliar with the older stuff, "Ten" being one of my all time favourite albums. A few songs into the set I started feeling really rough again, Pearl Jam were worth it. Me and Sarah put on our bin liners for warmth and after a while gave up standing (as our legs would no longer hold us) and sat back to back next to the fire. There was a drum solo from Mr Cameron (ex-Soundgarden) and a nice guitar solo during "Even Flow". They also played "Jeremy", "Once" and their new one "World Wide Suicide". Someone tripped over me, but Sarah deflected him with her ninja skills and I was unharmed. They did the encore thing and I took the time to grab a quick lie down, until someone stepped on me, more specifically, my jaw. Guess the bin liner wasn't such a good idea after all. They came back on, the encore included "Alive" my all time favourite Pearl Jam song. The crowd sang, it was amazing (despite my bruised jaw). So the encore finished, they thanked us and left. The crowd's cheers were really loud. So they came back on...that's right, we got 2 encores! They started it with "Why Go", funny guys. And we were treated to a cover of Bubba O Reily (classic Who song). That was wicked. A truely great set. Eddie Vender said during one of the bouts of cheering that they don't come here very often, they don't deserve this type of reception..lets hope they come more often now. We met up with Claire, who convieniently dissappeared until we had taken down the tent...strange. So we left the site for another year, I'm sure we'll return. My Daddio had kindly only parked a short distance away, we fell into the car, and so ends this long, rambling, but nevertheless informative blog. Untill we speak again.... and yes, this section was intended to be short...oopps

Reading Festival 2006 (Saturday)

redsoxrockmyworld — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 19:20:24 +0000

So, Saturday at the festival, the day sandwiched between Friday and Sunday. This was probably the best day of the weekend. We woke up (well I woke up, the other two just got up because they hadn't really slept) and we were totally un-hardcore and walked to the roundabout on the end of the long road to the campsite and arena and my Dad picked us up and we all went home and had (seperate) showers. Claire tells me her Mum cooked her Shepherd's Pie for breakfast, I had my usual Nesquik. It occoured to me that the cereal resembles rabbit droppings, maybe that's why there is a rabbit on the front of the box...?

So Sarah picked us up in her Mum's un-named car and drove us back to Reading. We parked in her Dad's work carpark using his permit (oooo illegal) and trekked back to the campsite. In hindsight we should have bought a Pierre's to eat on the way.

So, we walked to our tent from the car park to drop off any stuff, like water, that we didn't need straight away, and as we were walking from our tent to the arena we met some guys who were holding a "sock amnesty". They claimed that they needed 3 more socks to get enough to make a bonfire. So I said to the guy, who was wearing a Newcastle United shirt, that we would provide 3 socks if he burned his shirt. He agreed, so off we went in search if 3 socks. We only found 2 so we went back to ask if this was enough, but clearly his pride in his football team began to shine because he was hiding behind his tent L. So we went to arena anyway.

The first band we saw was The Futureheads. We were in pretty much the same postition as we had been for the Subways the day before. They did and enjoyable set, highlighs were the only two songs I knew, "Skip To The End" and "Hounds Of Love", the latter was really awesome. The blokes from the band spit the crowd up and each half did different parts of the intro, we did the ah oh oh part...aren't we cool.

We moved forward a tad for Dirty Pretty Things. In true "me" fashion, I knew one song, which I had been signing to Claire all week, except she continued "bang, bang" with "my baby shot me down"...it's ok, she learned the error of her ways. The matey from the Paddingtons (2005 fest flaskback) was playing guitar because Carl Barat had busted up his arm, the nonce, I liked his "union flag" sling though. So a load of really good songs later (and an encounter with a hardcore with a huge afro) they played "Bang, Bang" great song. I'll probably buy their album.

After Dirty Pretty Things were Feeder, a band we had all seen before (front row at Hammersmith Apollo I might add), they were awesome then and they were awesome now. We were pretty damm close here as well, at times probably maybe 3 or 4 rows from the front. People kept getting water from the security guys and after having about 2 sips they hurled it backwards, usually hitting one of us in the face, by the ends, we were all soaked. I loved every minute of their set, which comprised of the well known ("Buck Rogers", "Just A Day") to the lesser known ("Seven Days in the Sun" and "High"). It was a mental performance from start to finish. They are such a good band, and I would recommend anyone to see them. Before "Buck Rogers" Grant said this was his daughters' favourite song and, after watching TV highlights, she could be seen at the side if the stage, what great taste from such a young age. Plus I was recognised by a random for my exploits in the Fallout Boy pit, I guess fame just comes so easily to me.

Well, I wanted to go see Jet next, but instead I watched The Streets because everyone else wanted to watch them. They had this cool palm tree back drop which would have made you think you were in Hawaii, except we were cold and in a field. I didn't know any of the songs until "Dry Your Eyes" and "Fit But You Know It" which were right at the end, but it was sort of enjoyable anyway. They did rip off some other tunes at random points throughout the set, including "Monster" by the Automatic. We did, in fact, spend much of the time positioning ourselves for the Arctic Monkeys, who were due on after. They also did a "Go Low!" were everyone had to bend down...it was more fun than it sounds. Plus, I got given a Panic Channel flyer and a sticker for the Answer which are now proudly stuck on my bedroom wall : )

MONKEYS! The main stage was descended on by a bunch of 6 foot males, which lead to be being elbowed and shouldered in the face ALOT, this really pissed me off. So they started with "I Bet You Look Good..." and the crowd went mental, we didn't stand still at all throughout their hour long set. They also played "Fake Tales", "When The Sun Goes Down", "Dancing Shoes" and my favourite "Mardy Bum". Some prat had a big banner saying "I Love your Mardy Bum", she clearly has no grasp for the actual meaning of the word, and hasn't actually listened to the song. They were truely amazing, worth every bit of hype and praise. Alex Turner seemed shocked (even more than Johnny Rzeznik at that Goos gig) that this many people had turned up to see him and his band play. It'll be really interesting to see what they do with their next album...let's just hope they don't do a Strokes.

Finally, the main attraction, one of the greatest bands to ever grace Reading's great festival, Muse. I was still hacked off with the extreme beating my head took during the Monkeys, so me and Sarah relocated to the side of the stage, still a great view though. Claire, who has a few good inches on my height, remained in the middle. They came on to "Knights..." and rocked the house for 1 and a half hours. The set list included "Feeling Good", "Hysteria", "Hurricaines and Butterflies", "Starlight", "Plug In Baby" and "Supermassive Black Hole" to name a few. They were supposed to leave the stage to do the enocre thing, but Matt Bellemy allowed that and stayed on. They continued with my favourite song by Muse, "Time Is Running Out". It was a perfect show.

So after a day packed with music, I can safely say I was ready to curl up in a small ball on top of a bin liner and sleep until I was stepped on by a drunk person carrying their morning carling. However, there were sights to be seen, first up the late night cinema, which was a huge dissapointment. The screens were tiny! Pathetic...so we trotted off to the silent rave...yes you did hear me correctly SILENT rave. Turns out you have to queue for ages then you get some head phones and hear the music through them. I'd imagine it'd be pretty rubbish taking part, but watching was kind of funny. The people tended to put their bags on the floor and dance around them to protect them from theives, genious. So then, we were TOTALLY knackered and walked to sarah's illegally parked car, it took days. When we finally got there, I rode shotgun and probably fell asleep, there journey did seem to go kinda fast...

Reading Festival 2006 (Friday)

redsoxrockmyworld — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 19:16:47 +0000

aaahhhh reading festival, the thing that put Reading on the map, except if you ask my old american history teacher who would say, "class, reading is famous for 3 things, remember the 3 b's, beer, bulbs and biscuits" between sips of coke and coffee, i miss mrs humphery.

anyway, so reading festival. I got back from a week of undisclosed community service and was shattered, but the show had to go on! so i had a bowl of nesquik cereal to get me up and awake and missed the bus because i was eating my breakfast, so me and sarah got sarah's mum pick us up and we went in pursuit of the number 63 bus which claire and kathy were on. They stalled the bus and we managed to catch up with it and get on at one of the stops, thanks to sarah's mum for keeping the ride safe and speedy. So on the bus we greeted our chums and I laughed at kathy's bag because it was HUGE and she looked like a year 7 when she wore it, all she needed was her homework diary open at the map page, some glasses and the remains of her year 6 fringe and she would have been complete.

So we arrived at the site, went and found the tents that sarah and kathy had put up the day before while me and claire were on our undisclosed charity work. I had a minor spak when i thought I had lost my ticket but I hadn't so it was ok.

We treked back to the arena, Kathryn was back at normal age, having left her bag at the tent. Saw Towers of London and they were good, the guitarist did the "spitty thing" that I find so amazing and they released a crate of birds in to the air during their version of "Freebird" (a song I usually hate but was alright when "hairsprayed" up). Plus they played the usuals, "How Rude She was", "I'm A Rat", "Air Guitar" and "Fuck It Up".

We relocated ourselves to the side of the stage because we wanted to be close to the hot lead singer from Dashboard Confessional, who were next. They played "Vindicated" and their new single, "Don't Wait". Sarah claimed to have an album of theirs but she only recognised one song, and i knew two so clearly she was making that up to sound cool :) We probably went to the toilet next, (not the female urinals (sp?)).

Panic! At the Disco came on and after about half a song , someone chucked a large bottle at the lead singer (Brandon?) and knocked him clean over. It looked like he was going to go all emo and storm off and cry backstage but they all played on and I respect them alot for that. Thier set was enjoyable (despite me only knowing about 1/4 of the words to only one song) and I am know the proud owner of "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out" which I bought from my buddy at the Sound Machine (Harris Arcade(near the club formerly known as Baracuda), Reading-a legendary shop). Whoever said I was closed minded?

During the interval they played Tribute on the video screens, which is such a classic video and everyone sang along (we are but men, ROCK!) and for this reason there was no toilet trip in this break.

Up next: Subways! The first band since Towers that I knew more than 2 songs. I will say this for them, Billy Lunn has serious amounts energy, running, jumping, climbing, he is like a small child on vast amounts of E numbers, but in this case it wasn't annoying, it was a pleasure to watch. It is a shame that he's dating the bassist though, because they will blatently either a) break up causing the band to split or b) get married and become boring, this, my friends, is called a catch-22. So their set included songs like Rock n Roll Queen, Oh Yeah, City Pavement, and a new track which was either called America or California which they wrote during a trip to the US.

So, my favourite break of all, the one in which they played a bit of my boys from Jersey, yes, they did play actually play Livin' On A Prayer at Reading Festival. As I am a hardcore Jovi fan, this song does tend to annoy me at times, as I'm sure Feeder get annoyed with everyone going on about Buck Rogers, but still, everyone had a good old sing-a-long and the roadie laughed his arse off at us. And again we avoided the toilets which were probably getting pretty rank at this point.

Time for some more emo...yes, Fall Out Boy. I don't own the album, but I do have "Sugar, We're Going Down" on red vinyl so I knew the singles plus "Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner" because that is the b-side. All was going well (i.e. there were no bottles being thrown at them) until the aforementioned "Sugar,..." was played and Pete Wentz decided it was a good idea for us to throw bottles at each other. He mentioned about his matey getting hit by a bottle and told us all to pick up rubbish the ground, which we did because he is a hottie (if very short) and the lob it at each other during the chorus. It was freaking mental, it reminded me of the food fight in TGP minus the shoe and coinage.

So naturally, they follow that with Dance, Dance and as usual, wherever I stand huge circle pits form, can you guess where i'm going with this? All was well until I got dragged into the pit. I figured it was best to just go with it and get out after one turn, but as it usually is with roundabout, I missed my exit and had to go round again. Some spacko in front of me stumbled and got up, tripping me in the process, sending me flying. So I got kicked in the face and was nearly trampled to death until a nice gentleman landed on all fours on top of me to protect me from all the other violent men, I didn't have time thank him but I am very greatful. I think he had a beard, so thanks to the possibly bearded man who saved me. So after dragging myself out of the pit and asking some randoms if my nose was atill straight I found Claire and Sarah. Claire asked me "Lou, did i see you in the pit?" and I told them of my ordeal.

So Belle and Sebastian were on the main stage and we didn't want to see them so we took a trip to the signing tent and queued to meet Fall Out Boy. And queueing was all we did. The lead singer from Towers of London walked right past me, I may have even touched his shoulder, I can't remember. So we chatted to some random who's favourite bands were Fall Out Boy and Panic!, and he had the cheek to laugh at me for liking Jovi! cough 100,000,000 albums cough. It's called diversity buddy, if I can like music which borders on emo then you should be able to appreciate (not necessarily like) a band which has been making quality music for 22 years. Rant over. We didn't meet Fall Out Boy because there were people in the queue who didn't even go and see their set so they could be at the front (sence? i thought not), the line was too long so we gave up and I ate a pizza (which cost me 6 pounds but I figured i would be safe from food poisioning).

We watched the end Oh the Yeah Yeah Yeahs from the side lines and I really didn't get it, maybe you have to be high to understand it, and I wasn't.

Not sure if we toileted or not, but either way, we went back into the crowd for my mother's favourite, the Kaiser Chiefs. They came on, and it rained and I was freaking cold. I think they started with "Na Na Na Na Naa" and followed it by "Everyday I Love You Less And Less" but it may have been the other way round. After I warmed up I really enjoyed the show, the crowd were really into it and they played some new songs as well as "I Predict..", "Born To Be A Dancer" and my two favourites, "Modern Way" and "Oh My God". Ricky Wilson did some crowd interaction, we did a mexican wave and probably some call and response stuff. Very good show.

So, we were all shattered and we had seen Franz Ferdinand befo