Reading - Day 2
First, the music…
Thumper
Beastie Boys lyrics over guitar solos - odd
Wargasm
A sordid collusion of euphoria and violence apparently. It’s very cartoonish metal - the lead singer pretty much is Tank Girl and the drummer is Animal but it’s enjoyable enough (although I’d never to listen to it at any other time). Some proper crowd surfing as well - I didn’t see any yesterday.
The Sherlocks
Some nicely crafted 90s guitar indie with some nice vocal harmonies - it grew on me as the set progressed.
Dayglow
I’d never heard of them so had no idea what to expect. But I wasn’t expecting them to open with the start of Lipps Inc’s “Funky Town”. They were like a slightly funkier version of Hot Chip and they drew in the kids big time. It was all excellent festival fun - apparently the lead singer grew up in Austin, Texas and always dreamt of playing Reading. Chinny reckon!
Madison Beer
The kids were really excited about this one - there were a million of them squeezed into a tent as hot as an oven. She actually sounded pretty good but why she wasn’t on the main stage I’ve no idea
The Lathums
An oddly low key start including a slowed down cover of Pulp’s “Year 2000” which just proved that none of the kids knew it (it was 27 years ago now). It was quite a full sound - he’d definitely been listening to his Arctic Monkeys albums. It featured some fine vocals and guitar work and I quite liked it - but it didn’t go down as well as I was expecting it to. He seemed pretty made up about being there though.
Poppy
Not at all what I expected from the name or the look - she looked liked a young Kate Bush dressed up like a school teacher. But her band consisted of two guys shredding their axes and a drummer thrashing his skins - the vocals ranged from ethereal Cocteau Twins to full on screaming rock goddess. All very odd, but pleasurably odd - and “Say Cheese” is an impressively primal scream.
AJ Tracey
I imagine Polo G thought his show would go down like this - the man owned the crowd and it was a chunky crowd indeed. It wasn’t really my sort of thing, but the man’s got lyrical skills along with his rap partner. It was a good sound for the sunshine as well - and he was, very much, live and direct.
Enter Shikari
My home-town boys. I saw them once at Glasto ten (?) years ago and hated them - they were pure noise merchants back then. But they’ve mellowed with age (haven’t we all) and they know how to put on a good set these days. The crowd was a lot smaller than AJ but those that stayed enjoyed it. And there was a bizarre cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” in there - not sure how many of the kids got that. But then the lead singers from Wargasm rocked up and it’s stuff like that you really like to see at a festival - a nice spot of collaborative noise.
Fontaines DC
Only caught the end of their set because I’d been sent out to buy booze for the kids. But I failed (to be fair, I didn’t try too hard). Fontaines were better than I expected though - but his vocals still grate for me.
D-block Europe
I know they’re hippy hop types and very popular, but have never (as far as I know) experienced them. And yeah, it’s that rapping over tuneful backing track kinda thang - fine but meh for me. They did a good enough job though - except for the 5 mins they lost sound. But, after 30 minutes, it got VERY boring.
Wolf Alice
I’ve always thought I should like Wolf Alice more than I do - but they definitely put on a good live set. Tight, enjoyable songs with a fair bit of variety and some cool(ish) accompanying video. And for a little thing, Alice (and yes, I know that’s probably not her name) has quite a voice on her - overall, I liked it!
Bring Me The Horizon
“Your job is to do whatever the fuck you want. But if you stand still - you’re a fucking knobhead”. Really professional show including a top notch video accompaniment - the best we’ve seen so far. He’s a very charismatic lead as well - just listening to their stuff can be all a bit same-y for me, but live it worked really well. And then Ed Sheeran showed up - and I was down the front. Lucky me. There was a nasty injury in the mosh pit though - I suspect she’s not going to see much today
Sigma
I dipped out of BMTH to check out this premier dnb outfit - who were doing a 20 min DJ set. What’s the point? The kids loved it though
Arctic Monkeys
I generally like AM, but I don’t like them as much as like early AM - and it feels like they don’t really like early AM these days, so I was expecting to wait for a bit for them to play “I Bet That You…” and then decide they weren’t going to play it, my feet hurt too much, I didn’t want to get caught up in the crowds and head home for a cocoa before bedtime. Which is exactly what happened - with the added bonus that I could still hear them all the way “home” and just as I was taking my boots off, they launched into “I Bet…”. A slightly slower, more grown up version aka a less good version.
We are lacking in amusing anecdotes for the day except for Enter Shikari losing power just as he was ranting about the water companies, which looked remarkably like censorship, which made him amusingly furious and sweary - but turned out to be a complete coincidence and they’d only lost the power in the arena and people on streaming had heard it all…
Overall, I’d say it was a day of pleasant surprises, slightly let down by the headliners for me.
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