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!…

Rachael, Dan and I were planning to go kite boarding in Poole last weekend, however a lack of forecasted wind meant that we had to changes plans at the last minute.  What is the obvious thing to do when there is no wind? Sailing of course! (?!? )

Since Dan was the only one in the group who actually knew how to sail, starting out with a small amount of wind actually turned out to be a pretty good idea.  We booked in for 11am on Saturday morning, although we had to wait a little longer to start due to a sailing race which was happening on the same day.  After arriving at 10:30am, watching the professionals rig up their boats, playing a little Frisbee and enjoying the sun of what turned out to the be hottest day of the year so far, we we eventually wheeled out boat…

Once we (well, Dan) had got the sail set up, Mark and I boarded the boat for the first sail with ‘Captain Dan’.  Mark and I had literally ZERO experience sailing, so had to be taught which ropes to hold, when to pull and when to let go.  Dan got a little frustrated with us – although mainly when we were not taking it seriously and arguing over who was a better sailor.  Eventually we go the hang of it, and managed to have a lot of fun whilst also taking our job of ‘owning the front’ sail seriously…

Lessons learnt from captain Dan…

• A flappy sail is an unhappy sail
• ‘Li ho’ – actually, all I learnt was the phrase, no idea what it means
• Starboard=right, Port=left (although I did not learnt why they don’t just say right and left
• When the captain shouts “Ready about”, everyone is supposed to shout “Ready” to let him know they are ready to duck the mast as the boat turns

In addition, I learned that the wind can actually pull that boat, rather than push it!  I really had no idea about this before Dan explained how it worked.  The sail acts in a very similar fashion to a wing (or I suppose more accurately, a wing works in a similar fashion to a sail, since a sail has been around much longer).  So the boat actually sails IN to the wind when it’s curved surface produces a different in wind speeds on each side and results in a pulling effect.  Fascinating! Looking forward to getting some more experience sailing.

Despite not having much wind, we did manage to pick up speed on several occasions.  It was quite exciting each time we had to lean off the edge of the boat in an attempt to balance it each time we picked up speed.  Whilst I have not yet experienced sailing in strong winds, I can see that it requires team work, quick reactions and provides a great adrenaline rush.  Really looking forward to sailing properly in the sea

There were too many of us to all go on the boat at once, so we also had a picnic, Frisbees (which I somehow lost ) and kayaks…

Mark and I went for a circuit of the lake and thanks to the light winds actually managed to beat the boat around.  It was only when we go back to land that we realised we had been using the kids paddles!  Still lots of fun though   Whilst not quite the same, it reminded me of when Ali and I did sea kayaking in Thailand.  Definitely going to do more kayaking this year – maybe down the river in Reading next time.

The rest of the time at the lake was spent enjoying the sun, messing around and getting some awesome shots of (my now lost) Frisbees…

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. . .

The Reading Beer Festival is held every year in Kings Meadow, Reading.  This year it took us a LONG time to get in due to the fact that the toilets became blocked and they would not let any new people in to the event before they were cleared.  Once we were allowed in, we did a good job of sampling the beer (or wine in my case).  Here is a quick summary video of the day. . .