With a wailing ‘Ba ba ba ba ba bah bah fiiighhurrYEAH’ and a flailng ‘ooo-ooo-ooo-oo-o’ James Berry mops up the dregs spilled by this years’ Reading Festival. Prepare for disappointment.
Friday
There is a popular phrase, ‘save the best for last’. There’s another, ‘start as you mean to go on’. And then, the slightly lesser known ‘water your audience with PASSIVITY and DISAPPOINTMENT and SHITE from the moment they walk through the gate and siphon off all their enthusiasm before lunchtime’. You will see as you reach the bottom of this review, Reading 2003 ended a lot better than it began. Meaning there was one phrase the organisers failed to draw any wisdom from whatsoever. And one they treated a little too much as gospel. Things weren’t awful you understand, just that drifting from middling to middling to unmentionable provides little in the way of inspiration, which is always what you hope such a gathering should provide.
Then there was the attention-repelling gutless metal and kiddy-punk, nu and old, clogging up the main stage. Bowling For Soup welcome us to the site, boiiinging into action (yes, boiiinging, like an ugly glaring bouncy ball that infatuates some spotty little oik – or 10,000 of them). Festivals have started better. Later on LESS THAN JAKE tweak the formula, or more accurately the hairstyles, and carry this idiocy up the bill. THE DATSUNS and THE DARKNESS both party like it’s Reading ’84, sharing intentions and excruciating solos, but at least the latter made us laugh and got 50,000 sheep singing falsetto. We had the misfortune to drift past portly solo CREED bloke on the way for food. It’s like having anesthetic syringed into our ears. He sits on the face of Pearl Jam’s ‘Black’ at one point making us retch. We managed to steer clear of the likes of LINKIN PARK and BLINK 182, though a less fortunate friend told of how he got trapped in a bursting Radio 1 tent when the puzzlingly huge ALIEN ANT FARM were pathetic all over a stage. We feel for him.
Sharply dressed Scots FRANZ FERDINAND on the Carling Stage were the first hit of the day (i.e. not with projectiles) with a glut of sharp, cocky new wave. Essentially THE LIBERTINES with a BA(Hons), and cleaner veins. The only direct strike of the afternoon though belonged to a man who couldn’t miss, frighteningly wholesome Canadian hip-hop artiste BUCK 65. “I’m here to dance and play you some music, not sell you vodka,” he says in a hick/camp drawl stood before the dance tent sponsor’s throbbing projection. “I’ve covered up the banners, but I can’t do the TV screens”. His act is equally as righteous. He fans dry ice with a record sleeve, simultaneously gibbering over a gutsy 4/4 beat like Tom Waits on the wrong speed, plays air steel-pedal guitar, does a lethargic body pop and paces around like Tony Martin on E. “I should have warned you before,” he purrs with a throat full of gravel, “that these new songs are going to knock you flat on your arse, these are adult portions”. We are left full to the brim.
PLACEBO don’t offend, they don’t even get under your skin. But maybe that was one of the things they had going for them anyway. They play too much new stuff, the old classics are thin on the ground, and they get overshadowed by the sonic boom of a passing Concorde. MCLUSKY though laugh in the face of the sound barrier and deliver the most adrenalised, tortuously intense set of the day. Stood next to the majority of their Friday peers this is Armageddon running around with its pants down and a missing nuclear warhead up its backside. All the crowd pleasers, the bassist on nutjob setting 10 and some filthy new blasts from their current recording session with Steve Albini. Awesome. To ease us down Interpol get over their Glasto cramps by lurching under the cover of darkness, or the cover of a big tent at least. They’re sharp, solid, looming and their bassist contorts like a bendy wire figurine. Excellent. The hour of the bassist.
It was ELBOW we’d presumed would take the night though. But they didn’t. They were snuffed by the worst festival sound Crud has ever experienced, without exception. Four singers perch at the back waiting to fill the sparse ‘Ribcage’ with gospel magnificence. Except nothing happens. They’re introduced to the mix with moments to go. Same with ‘Red’s strings. And Guy’s soaring vocals at the climax of ‘Bitten By The Tailfly. You can see their superiority oozing its way out, a shockingly brimming ‘Grace Under Pressure’ steams in to save proceedings at the end but it’s too late. It’s like buying an ounce of the best weed in Berkshire only to light up and find it’s a selection from Budgens’ herb rack. The omen of the day reels back into view. Only the soundman suspended by his flappy ears from the lighting rig could have made up for this. EVAN DANDO went some way to easing the pain though. Back on the smack maybe, poorly finger definitely (apparently the reason he’s playing more solos than usual), but that doesn’t stop him being the most effortless, swelling, infectious approximation of an icon. Giving a good name to the word shambles and a reason to leave today with a smile on our face.
Saturday
We awake, not suffocating under grubby canvas as would be usual, but bringing into focus the suit and tie hanging at the end of the bed. Yes, a bed! And yes, a suit! For we have taken the day off from Reading to attend a wedding. And in the interests of review continuity this is something we feel we should detail. As far as opening acts go the ceremony was clearly the best of the weekend, pulling us in with a kaleidoscope of acoustic guitar, definitive trumpet and choral singing (almost like a Spiritualized album really) and rounded off with a congregation-supported run through classic childhood hymn ‘If I Was A Fuzzy Wuzzy Bear’. Magic, clearly. They were also married by the groom’s father, which we imagine created some lovely celestial feedback. The speeches were humbling, touching and side-splitting in equal amounts, keeping up the mid-day momentum. And the long wait for the vegetarian buffet was ultimately rewarding, only marred by our friend Dave taunting us with his full plate while we remained at the back of the queue. The git. A strong Irish contingent meant the fridge remained well stocked with Guinness and to be honest this coloured most of the day’s proceedings. A pretty bitchin’ Irish quartet took the headlining slot, banging out the likes of ‘Dirty Old Town’ as night fell, and there was dancing and high spirits and spillages. Somewhere in the far distance Damon Albarn fell off a stage. Like a twat. Frankly we were glad to be elsewhere. And you should be glad to hear about it.
Sunday
This is more like it. Sun out, breeze in our beard, best weed in Berkshire (literally today) and a muddy wall of grunge. A muddy wall it may be, and of a consistency which probably muddied these stages good and proper a decade ago, but it’s BIFFY CLYRO and they have a lovely habit of lurching out with a shiner of a tune every once in a while. KINESIS do a similar thing on the Radio 1 stage afterwards with a much rougher sound, but grim guitar and feedback suits us just fine right now, even if they aren’t quite living up to their revolutionary promise. The most revolutionary, nay punk, thing we did see all weekend didn’t even have a beat. Comedian, activist, all-round top fucker MARK THOMAS arrived like an aid parcel and had a heaving comedy tent eating out of his rough palm. Not the most graceful eating natch, considering the inevitable laughter, but such blunt reasoning, immense common sense, unfaltering belief and incessant humour bubbling through everything is so very convincing, and so eat you must. A modern social evangelist. All that was missing was the chance to tap your foot.
Of course PRIMAL SCREAM have got the tunes, but all Bobby found to revolt against today was the rest of the bill. And the entire audience. “You’re all a bunch of slaves, here to see Metallica and all those other shite bands. You’re all just fucking spectators,” he dribbles, maybe having half a point. But then your patience has got to take a beating stuck between the lamentable SUM 41 and GOOD CHARLOTTE. Their set of sonic righteousness is rather diluted under daylight and protests no doubt fall on deaf ears (or at least those with ‘Master of Puppets’ on a tinnitus cycle). But the day’s biggest rushes came from those who snubbed revolution for escapism, taking you somewhere bigger and brighter entirely, starting with THE RAVEONETTES who shone all manner of yellows and reds, with an icy blue sheen. They might have just the one, going on one and a half, song. But what a joyous fucking blast of a pop song and a bit it is. Besides, such rigorous discipline is commendable. Like the Jesus and Mary Chain having their serious nipples licked by Aqua in a Tate & Lyle factory.
Things certainly took a turn for the better in the final straight, as if the festival had winked at us, whispering “I was toying with you all along”. And thus began maybe the greatest succession of music this scribe has experienced in all his years of festival frequenting (it’ll be ours’ and Reading’s 10th anniversary next year). HOT HOT HEAT might have a full tent hanging on for ‘Bandages’ (radiantly delivered at the end), but being the musical equivalent of bubble wrap it’s impossible to tire of them. The strain of touring seems to have taken its toll, there’s an unsatisfying mid-patch with tune deflating all over the place, but they can’t help but snap back into place. SYSTEM OF A DOWN are a different proposition entirely, and not nearly as cuddly. Theirs is a military bout of precision, with an adrenaline surplus and man smoking napalm at the controls. So heavy, so effective and so very ginourmous, they make most of their contemporaries look about as threatening as a box of matches in a birdbath.
Though maybe GRANDADDY have news for them. “We’re punk rock,” professes Jason Lytle as we join him in the midst of a placid abbreviated rant against the credibility of the day’s bill. “We don’t wanna be, we just are,” smirks he. And next to their lethargic Astoria showing earlier in the year they do seem it. Light-footed, sure and direct, this is lazy grinning hour. ‘AM 180’ and ‘El Caminos In The West’ shine and even manage to raise our pulse-rate. And they have a rodeoing pig on the screen at one point. This we like though we’re not sure why. HOPE OF THE STATES provide no such questions though, we know exactly why we’re dribbling ecstasy at the sight of their red-light bathed aural expanse. They are warm and contagious. They are post-rock in spirit and classically anthemic in body. They pull you up and leave you floating there, propel you through several gale forces, and then set you down gently. Then they thank you! Frontman Sam Herlihy sits at his piano swaying, nodding with a wonderfully numb gaze, soaking up the arms-in-the-air appreciation being blown back at them. Blissful. Powerful.
There is quite the atmosphere preceding the YEAH YEAH YEAHS. The audience give a note perfect rendition of the “ooo-ooo-ooo-oo-oo” segment of The Darkness’ ‘I Believe…’ which almost endears us to the song. Then they enter, introducing us immediately to a pair of new dirty rock creepers, electronically laced, almost to a Soft Cell degree in fact. But we’re with them, they remain i-fucking-conic. It just goes OFF for ‘Rich’. Then ‘Pin’ phwoars the tent right off its hinges. ‘Maps’ is the most drippingly raunchy moment of the weekend. “Ba ba ba ba ba bah bah fiiighhurrYEAH!” as she puts it. We, for one, agree. Three times over. We can see METALLICA’s audience steaming on the big-screens, and judging by the riff thick ‘Sad But True’ stomping out by the time we join them every byte of anticipation is met. They might just be an off-the-conveyor-belt product these days, the antithesis of fan-friendly and hypocritical to boot, but they’ve got one hell of a back catalogue, which they play with oomph.
But BRITISH SEA POWER have a titillatingly magnificent debut which they play with chutzpah, and that’s too great a pull to ignore. Yan: “This guy’s got a great voice”. A man walks to the microphone and performs the acapella Dance of the Yelping Chaffinch. Match that San Francisco metellers! ‘Carrion’ blossoms into an incredible ethereal wig-out and ‘Remember Me’ extends to epic proportions. When they start ‘Lately’ with 25 minutes to go we wonder where this is going. Of course we know. And, boy, are we still left staggered. Corking I believe is the word. Or mind-squelching possibly. And so it ends at the polar antithesis of the start. With an encore of ‘Enter Sandman’ on the way out it gets a little too cherry-on-top. All is forgiven Reading.
In Brief… Ok Go, we take their advice. Bubblegum pop without the flavour… RAZORLIGHT open out fairly promisingly with a ballsy 60ft Dolls/These Animal Men tribute that seems like it belongs here… Chungking unfurl their spiky lounge with more pizzazz than the record… THE VUE are battling with THE DARKNESS so play to about 20 people, but cushion our ears with a more humble breed of rock ‘n’ roll … WHITE LIGHT MOTORCADE have a bassist in Ramones shtick, a guitarist rocking the Keith Richards look and a frontman in the Tim Wheeler lineage. They end up being the Droning Stones, in a not awful way… KEANE do Electric Soft Parade covering Elton John with anthems a go-go and are better than they sound, especially since we can hear James Walsh weeping in the distance… Radio 4 like at Glasto are direct groovesome swine, but Christ! Those bongos … LADYTRON are refreshingly electronic, cold, bass heavy and striking… POLYPHONIC SPREE are exceedingly late so we piss off to EVAN DANDO, but not before we’ve seen Tim Delaughter bouncing up and down on the spot amongst the roadies for 20 seconds… Finch are just a nu-mess… The best thing Good Charlotte did was encourage the audience to shower them in debris, it was beautiful.