10/10/2006
READING FESTIVAL
AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND
Reading stands out from this year’s crop of festivals in a filthy field of its very own as probably the most rebellious, leftfield offering available without taking to an airplane so getting there was never going to be as easy as, say, cramming onto a bus. So Jack Sparrow-style, we wobble up the plank with a pack full of gear and beer to join the other passengers on a tramp steamer/pleasure cruiser-hybrid, pottering down the Thames at sedate pace on a sunny Friday morning. Thanks to some slick organisation and decent signposting finding a pitch and camping was easy and painless once on dry land. The main arena is a short walk away and Scotland was generous enough to lend Reading a substantial proportion of its population to steward the event in the way only an army of slightly agitated Scots can. The first day, Friday, provided some intriguing set list clashes - Kaiser Chiefs or Ice-T’s Bodycount? The godfather of gangsta rap playing the small BBC Lock Up stage with his metal band was never going to be dull so Ricky et al got the cold shoulder as Ice-T and Bodycount did for 80 mins what the Kaisers might only have managed with their final encore – turned the entire audience into a writhing, crazed mass. The extended encore took in the much-banned ‘Cop Killa’ and a cover of Hendrix’s ‘Hey Joe’ complete with a cameo from 14-year-old Junior Ice (son of). Franz Ferdinand wouldn’t even dare ask Ice-T for a light, let alone come close to trumping Bodycount as Friday’s best band. Saturday comes and so does the rain but Tilly And The Wall more than make up for the weather; their charming melodies and genuine pleasure at playing their first festival is a joy to watch but the biggest draws on Saturday were undoubtedly The Streets and Muse. Chalk and cheese in musical terms but one and the same when it comes to producing arena-pleasing sets and arm waving mayhem. Opening with the grandiose ‘Knights of Cydonia’, Muse come across as musical outlaws, disregarding in favour of a sound that’s been brewing in some dark and distant galaxy for several millennia before landing in a field in Berkshire on a Saturday evening to electrify the 80,000 onlookers. ‘Starlight’ is also utterly entrancing and as the sky erupts in a sea of fire following the band’s encore it is a certainty that nobody else will produce a set grander in vision, better in execution and more enjoyable than Saturday’s headline band. Sunday was the heaviest day of the festival and EMO is off the menu much to the displeasure of My Chemical Romance - Gerrard Way is an angry young man despite his fetching new blonde crop. Sadly Placebo display none of this attitude and energy, the highlight of their set being when an amp broke and
they couldn’t make a sound for 10 minutes. The alternative entertainment, naked flesh on the big screens, was much more interesting than any part of ‘Nancy Boy’. So it was over to Pearl Jam to end the weekend on a high and Eddie Vedder just about manages to better anything else that made a sound on Sunday. Leaving the stage in tears after some grinding renditions of classic such as ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ he leaves you with the impression that Pearl Jam are sitting just a little too comfortably to make the sort of impact they’re capable of – Ice T could give him some tips and how to add a little excitement and danger.
Words: Ben. H Murray
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