Despite having lived and worked in and around Reading for the past 8 years, the last time I went to the Reading festival was about 10 years ago…when I did not have the luxury of being able to get a train/taxi home, sleep in my own bed and shower. 

Whilst I wasn’t sure about going to a festival where I only knew 10% of the bands, I thought I would give it a try.  The festival got off to a great start when some random girls started conversation with me in the queue to get wristbands.  I am pleased to say that the friendly, unthreatening and inhibition free conversations flowed throughout the entire weekend.  For me, the people made the festival and a lot of the unfamiliar music pleasantly surprised me.  My list of favourite bands tagged on Spotify has increased significantly as a result of three happy, tiring and memorable days spent in the rain and sun.

Rather than a lengthy writeup, here are my 10 favourite quotes (in no particular order) from the festival…

It was not your fault this time

…which is of course referring to one of the main lyrics to ‘Little Lion Man’ by Momford and Sons.  I include this because they were one of the highlight bands of the whole festival for me due a number of reasons…

• the great album (‘Sigh no more’) I have been listening to for the past few weeks
• the great company I had from Gemma and Liz whilst watching the band…
  
• The awesome performance which included some songs which were emotional and audience arm sway educing, and others which had thousands synchronized in an energetic, drink spilling bounce. 

Here is the emotional opening performance of ‘Sigh no more’…

Would you mind if I sit on your shoulders to get a photo of the band?

…from the random girl (‘LOL’ painted forehead girl) who asked my friend Dan to assist her…

I love how everyone at festivals will say anything, ask anything and in most cases DO anything without inhibitions (see the next quote…).

 

Mate, can I borrow on of your spare cups? I need a pee

…from the random guy in the middle of the crowd who couldn’t make it to the gents toilets on the outer edge of the arena.  He quickly filled up one of the spare paper pint glasses I had, whilst the girls that were with him paid little attention…guess it’s wasn’t THAT unusual for them!

Mate, can I have another cup?

…yep, the same guy grabs another top quote spot 5 mins later when he asks me for ANOTHER cup! He actually managed to fill up 4 before we wondered off to another section of the audience!  Still, at least he didn’t throw the cups over the crowd…

At least it’s cold

If you watch a music festival audience for just a few minutes, you are likely to see music lovers throwing cups of liquid over the audience in front of them at least 5 times.  Now, bearing in mind the story of the guy from the previous quotes, and considering that the majority of people at the event cannot afford to waste drinks bought at festival prices…do you think all of the thrown cups contain alcohol?!

Most of the weekend was about rock music, but there was a refreshing dance music salvation in the NME tent on the Saturday night in the form of the computer game sound inspired Crystal Castles, Enter Shikari and crazily energetic Pendulum.

For some reason, we were in a spot which was repeatable targeted by cup throwers.  Every time we got hit, there was a lot of cringing, followed by “at least it’s cold”, which was the best method we had of determining that the liquid was at worst someone’s unwanted beer.

Here is a small clip of Crystal Castles with was accompanied by an amazing light show in the NME tent…

We’re staying over in Reading, but we haven’t got camping tickets or a hotel

…which sums up the care/consequence free attitude at the festival.  This lot didn’t seem to worried about the fact they were probably going to be sleeping on street (or not at all)…

No we didn’t offer them a place to stay! Well…at least I didn’t! I did leave Dan with them when I went home, so who knows?!….

 

You just lost the game

…which after a few glasses of wine I was very excited to see written on this guys t-shirt…

…even though none of my group knew what it meant, so looked at me strangely as I tried to explain.  For those who don’t know, here are the details…

Lose The Game – The World’s Most Infamous Mind Virus

 

Would you like a poncho?

…from the kind girl who gave me a free poncho as I walked through the Sunday afternoon rain in just a t-shirt, jeans, a flowery hat and a scarf.  Thank you strange girl – I was already soaked, but you did save me getting any wetter.

A British festival would not be the same without a bit of rain and mud…

I’m just a Teenage Dirtbag Baby

…for the awesome, audience pleasing, surprising and very memorable performance from Weezer! 

They sang a few of their hits which I didn’t know (but still enjoyed), as well as covers of ‘Kids’ by MGMT and ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ by Wheatus…

During the hour long performance the lead singer put on a blonde wig, danced on top of the speaker, high fived the entire front row of the the audience, rolled around in the mud and entertained the main stage audience will all of kinds of other stunts!  Weezer went from being a band I only knew from their ‘Buddy Holly’ song which was included as a sample ‘avi’ video file with Windows 95, to one of my favourite live performers this year!

We will meet you by the ice cream van

…which were the instructions my friend gave Mark to another friend Sam so that we could find her when entering the site.  Upon entering the arena, we discovered a little flaw in the plan – there were at LEAST 10 ice cream vans spread around the main arena.

Despite the challenges with finding people in the middle of huge crowds, with strong competition for limited space on the cell network and with numerous different acts playing on different stages at the same time, we did all manage to get together and share the experience of seeing some awesome bands playing live.  Top weekend, with top music and top friends!…

LOVE IT!

The Match Fours acappella group were there to promote the Washington Lottery.  I’m not sure if they helped sell lottery tickets, but they certainly entertained the crowd!  Check out this awesome version of ‘I can see clearly now’. . .

These guys worked great together and sounded like they could perform pretty much any song without using a single musical instrument.  I was on my way to see another act, but ended up standing outside the lottery stand for about 15 minutes whilst these guys pulled in the crowds.  On top of sounding great, they had lots of fun, check out this (perhaps slightly clichéd acappella) version of ‘The lion sleeps tonight’. . .

The guy on the right is the bass man – it was amazing how he keeps the constant tone whilst the others are singing and chatting to the crowd.  They also sang ‘Four Little Numbers’, which is apparently the Washington state lottery song (not that I would have known). . .

And one last clip of an unexpected Blondie vs. The Bangles mashup . . .

For the first time in months, last night I went along to Mango in Reading (Berkshire) last night for the re-launch of Lunar.  The night promised to to provide some ‘exciting new developments’ for the main room and the garden.  I have lost track of the number of club nights which have promised to provide something ‘different’, ‘new’, ‘fresh’, ‘surprising’, etc…, however Lunar really did deliver on it’s promise by providing the audience with a huge surprise half way in to the evening!

In a club known for a stomach rumbling sound system, stunning lighting displays and a packed dance floor full of dance music fans shouting ‘TUNE!’, the last thing everyone expected was a Spanish (as a tribute to Ibiza) dancer to inject a little bit of culture in to a House/Techno night, but that’s exactly what Carrie and Sam arranged for their Lunar Cosmonauts. . .

Click the image below if you would like to see the flyer the night. . .

We saw Steve play for the first time in Pacha, Ibiza about a month ago, where he totally rocked Swedish House Mafia on the Monday night!

The Saturday afternoon at Global Gathering was a slow start, due to amazing and slightly crazy time everyone had on the Friday night.  We arrived at the main arena at about 3pm, although spent most of the first hour or so chilling on the floor of the Golden Circle section.  When Steve got on the decks, right from the first tune we were up our feet, shouting ‘tune!’ continuously and joining the ever increasing crowd to support Mr Angello during his superb set!

Here is a video clip with a cheeky Basement Jaxx remix early on in the set (note how busy it was behind the golden circle!)…

Half way through Steve was also accompanied by some pyrotechnics which included smoke, explosions, confetti and a few other bits.  I managed to get a bit of video of the confetti falling whilst Benni Bennasi was on his way in…

All in all, the best 1.5 hours of house music I have had in a long time! Great work Steve Angello! We are thinking of going back to Ibiza just for the Swedish House Mafia closing parties now!

Oh, one last thing.  We even got our photo published on the BBC website (I’m the one on the left) (click to view)…

(The ‘Tune’ and sunflower glasses were hand made by Ilona whilst we were sitting in the tent during the day.)