Carling Reading/Leeds Festival Review

[Guest Renegade]

Carling Reading Festival review: Sunday 25th of July

 

All reviews done out of five (no stars)

 

(Note: The songlists of the bands might not be 100% accurate due to seeing this on Sunday, but it should be accurate)

 

Having gone to the Reading festival on Sunday, I thought I’d post my own review of it:

 

11am: After brushing through throngs of goths, punks and 12 year olds in Slipknot hoodies, I couldn’t help but feel out of place slightly. After getting through hoards of people I finally get my wristband and manage to find my way to the main area.

 

12 pm: Some of my friends camped out for the entire weekend, so I thought I would give them I visit first. After catching up and having a bite to eat we begin to make our way to the stages.

 

1:45 pm: The stages were as follows:

 

- The main stage. (outdoor stage all the bigger acts were playing there)

- The Dance stage. (tent)

- The Comedy stage. (tent)

- The Carling stage. (tent)

- The evening session stage. (tent)

 

We get to the main stage to see Amen playing around halfway through their performance, and they sound God-awful. Having bought “We Have Come For Your Parents” I was truly let down. Casey didn’t hit any of the vocals, the band were all over the place (in a bad way). Casey sang half of the songs outside of the mic, which obviously doesn’t help either. Amen almost rap it up with “The Price of Reality”, the song which “should” get them the biggest reaction, but falls flat on its face. Casey then tells us this is the last gig they’ll be doing for a year, cant say that I’ll miss you Casey. 1/5

 

(Note: Casey did not cut himself after performance)

 

2:30 pm: After leaving the main stage bitterly disappointed, I hear the most delightful racket. It turn my head to see it coming from the Carling stage, I quickly browse through the program to see which band is it. “Dragpipe” played astonishingly well, a perfect mix of heavy rock and punk. No real rating as I didn’t get to see the band and I came in through the last two songs.

 

2:35 pm: “Hundred Reasons” take the stage and the crowd absolutely loves them. I hated their album when I heard it, but it has never felt so good to be wrong. They handle the crowd like pros, asking for a pyramid as they jam through their happy go lucky harmless emo, you cant help but feel good. Suddenly, their power goes out, leaving the crowd on the verge of being pissed. But have no fear as the frontman tries a hand to keep the crowd busy by making us sing along to the jingle of a Nestle chocolate advert. The power finally comes back on and we are good to go. The gripe I have is that after three of their songs, they all sound the same. 3/5

 

3:15 pm: “Puddle Of Mudd” come onstage, no “hello”, no “how we all doing?” no nothing. They play straight into “Bring me down” and Wes’s vocals are dead on if not better, but they get very little reaction. They go to “Abrasive”, note to PoM, that is a terrible song! The song does nothing for them as the move onto “Out of my head”, a new song and “Drift and Die”. The band don’t peep a word to the crowd in-between songs. The opening to “Blurry” and…

 

“BLURRY! I LOVE THIS SONG!” A girl screams as the crowd finally gets into it. After a sporadic reaction from the crowd, “Basement” is played. “She hates me” gets the crowd going again with its pop catchy-ness, leading into a another new song. PoM sang and performed dead on, but the total lack of fan interaction and crowd response until Blurry really killed this. 3/5

 

4:20 pm: NOFX take the stage, and to be honest I don’t like them. After playing some songs they talk about being wasted and seeing spiderman. I look at the program to see that “Reel Big Fish” are playing at the Carling stage. Lets see, NOFX or Reel Big Fish? I make my way to the Carling tent.

 

4:35: Despite its petit size compared to the main stage, the Carling tent has about 15 times as much reaction right now. Reel Big Fish take the crowd by storm; my only regret is I wasted time seeing NOFX, “Take on me” gets a markout moment as the band rap things up with another song or two. Very good. 4/5

 

5:50: Back to the main stage again as “Incubus” comes on. The crowd does mainly consist of girls right now. It might be just me but I find Incubus very very boring. After going through a lot of old stuff (and putting me in a semi-coma in the process) they move onto “Are you in?” and WHAM! A plastic bottle hits me square in the back of the head. I turn around to see the entire place swarming with bottles, worse than anything I’ve seen in a long time. Two guards rush through to stop the madness, two guards? Your fucking kidding me right? Surprise surprise the guards accomplish shit all as “Drive” is played to rap things up, and I get the hell out of there. Very little interaction from Incubus, the occasional “thank you” which just makes them sound like polite and shy tourists. 2/5

 

8:10 pm: Slipshit, Dicknot, Dickshit, I’ve head them all. But they must be doing something right though. Slipknot rip the place apart, the mosh pit is going fucking crazy as they open things. Corey is the prefect frontman, he orders the fans, but says it with compliments in order to make it feel like an interaction (and who else can put the word “fucking” an obscene amount of times into one sentence?) “People = Shit” starts things, followed by “Eyeless”, “Disasterpiece”, “Left behind”. “Wait and bleed” manages to draw in EVEN more people to the stage, following into “Purity” (which is the bands fav song to do live) then “(SIC)” and “My plague”. Bottle fever is back with a vengeance as plastic rain falls from the heavens, prompting Corey to actually go “Fucking hell!” and finally ending things with “Spit it out.”

 

Now the bad…Slipknot cannot play live! The instruments overpower Corey and each other, its one huge mess. If I didn’t know the songs word for word I really wouldn’t be able to distinguish one song from the other. 2/5 and that’s just for the crowd reaction.

 

9:00 pm: The crowd is packed, the sun has gone and “The Offspring” take the stage. They don’t burn they house down, far from it. They break the door down and plant an A-bomb in the fireplace and watch it explode in a frenzy of splinters. Things start of with “The kids aren’t alright” which really sets things going into full gear. The entire crowd is chanting along till the very end of the song as they go into “Americana”. Dexter drops the guitar for this one and makes us all chant along “Fuck you!” for the chorus. After some compliments from Dexter they go into “All I want”. Dexter and Noodles continue the onstage banter by Dexter asking the crowd if we find Noodles sexy. “Come out and play”, “Have you ever”, “Why don’t you get a job” and “Million Miles away” follow as Dexter has the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. Dexter then warns us about the pasta stand being on fire and asks us why there is a pasta stand and not a pasta bar. He then says he’s determined to make a pasta bar after the gig is finished. Dexter then says how come when NOFX and Slipknot play people are all over the barricades and not for them, and you know what? He’s right. “Special delivery”, “Want you bad” and “Bad Habit” follow and the crowd is giving a reciprocal chant-along through the entire thing. I also notice when the crowd is actually having a good time they stop throwing those damn bottles.

 

“You guys look a little tired!” Dexter says. “You guys need intermission!”. Oh hell yeah! “Intermission” is played as the crowd sways from side to side till it ends and goes to “Staring at the sun.”

 

Dexter tells us that this has been the best gig they’ve been to in a long time (I dunno if it was true, but hey!) and asks us if we all would like to be on the new album. Dexter sings one line and makes us repeat it, and after three attempts we finally get it right (apparently it was recorded.) They end things with “Pretty fly” and there are off. AMAZING! Perfect balance between songs and fan interaction, THE live experience of the night. 5/5

 

The Prodigy were the only act left, but unfortunately I had to head home early.

[Guest NazMistry]

I went to the Reading Festival last year.

The lineup this year sounded better. But apparently no one played that good, or so I have been told.

[Guest the 1inch punch]

Why didnt you see Jimmy Eat World

[Guest Dr. Wrestlingphysics]

A one day ticket? Ha! Weekend w/camping rules!

About Sunday...

NoFX were pretty good, but talked too much.

Offspring are my younger sisters favourite band, so I am not allowed to like them, so I will say that playing intermission during a 1 hour set is lazy, as is getting the crowd to sing.

Slipknot, Incubus, Reel Big Fish etc were what you'd expect but I was pleasently surprised at the Prodigy.

After Offspring I was considering going back to my tent, but my friends persuaded me otherwise, and I actually enjoyed them, Even if they didn't do "everybody in the place".

[Guest Dr. Wrestlingphysics]

Why didnt you see Jimmy Eat World

Jimmy Eat World were on on Saturday, so Renegade couldn't have seen them.

I didn't see them as it started pissing it down when Muse came on, so my friends and I retreated to our tent circle. Luckily, it stopped in time for the Food Fighters.

[Guest saturnmark4life]

NOFX are probably the best band i've ever seen, certainly better than that group of pop punk fucks who pass for reel big fish these days. And whilst they talked alot they played more songs than anyone else too. Fuck puddle of mudd, fuck amen and fuck vex red. And muse. I was at leeds so i got G n R, and though i'm not the biggest fan they were pretty fucking amazing. Same goes for prodigy and the streets. Of course i LOVED AWK~!, and came so very close to getting onstage with him before i was dragged off by the security nazis. One lucky fucker got up on his shoulders. Oh and i quite like the White Stripes but they bored the shit out of me. Others i really liked were

weezer

the soundtrack of our lives

the hives (trust me, they STOLE it at the end)

aphex twin

the datsuns

jon spencer blues explosion

hundred reasons

less than jake

there's probably more, it was fucking great.

[Guest Marshall]

Well, if you're interested I had a cool time at creamfields. It was fun, I got "fucked up" in a good way.