Reading Festival 2009

Months have passed now, but I figured if I was going to open this blog back up, I'd write about some stuff that's happened in the past few months, and quite a lot of stuff has happened...
So We'll start with Reading Festival, back in August.
It was my first time experiencing a full weekend at Reading Festival, and my main observation of the festival as a whole was that the atmosphere is nothing compared to that of Download Festival, because people who attend Download go for the music and the good times, and the majority of people at reading appeared to be there just to say they'd been there. A Fashion statement kinda thing maybe?
The best band of the weekend (for me,) Manchester Orchestra was almost ruined by hordes of poseurs stood in front of me absolutely dead still and silent. I, obviously belted out every song as loud as i could, jumped around a lot and did my best to give them a "get the fuck out of my way you poser cunts!" after every song, mixed with screams of "I love you Andy!" and just generally ruin their day. Childish? yes. Fun? yes.

So yeah, a little run-down on the bands I saw:

Friday-

Manchester Orchestra - Performance of the weekend, bursting with emotion and technically just brilliant.

Alexisonfire - Afternoon set on the mainstage was alright, had quite a lot of fun singing along etc, though puzzled by the lack of TV screens? Lock up set later on was a fucking riot, atmosphere was brilliant and everyone was in to it. Though by this point, I was shit-faced, so if you asked me to list the set-list, I could name 4 songs at best.

Kings of Leon - They really didn't want to be there, and I can't see why, as they got a fantastic reception. They sounded pretty tight still though, but anyway, I bailed for Billy Talent.

Billy Talent - Could only just about squeeze my way into the tent, and it was pretty nuts in there, wasn't their biggest fan beforehand, but I'll probably look in to them a bit more now.

Saturday-

Polar Bear Club - Second time seeing these, still not a huge fan, but they were loving it, and the crowd was loving it, so it was a good set and a good way to kick my hangover.

Chuck Ragan - Fantastic, sandwiched in between the bouncing punk of Polar bear Club and the hardcore noise of Wilhelm scream it was like a relaxing sing-a-long (for me and about 8 other people?) in the mid afternoon. And when Tim from Rise Against popped out to help sing California Burritos, was definitely the highlight of the day.

Metric - Like these on record, did not like them live. Trying too hard to be cool for their NME fans. Shame.

Prodigy - Quite fun, was quite far back and there was still a bit of dancing going on.

The Bronx - Only caught a little bit unfortunately, but what I saw was good.

Thursday - A decent set, ruined by yet more unnecessary hippie high-horse ramblings from Geoff Rickly.

Arctic Monkeys - If the band was lame, it's only because the crowd was lamer. Although I was pretty far back (midway between the sound stage and first barrier) so maybe the atmosphere up front was a bit better. Everybody went nuts when they played I bet you look good on the dance floor, but then stood still for the rest of the time I bothered to stick around.

Rise Against - So around about the point where Alex Turner says "We're gonna slow it down a bit now" in the middle of their already miserably slow set, I turned and shouted "Fuck you, we're going to see Rise Against!" Then me and about 5 drunk people I didn't know marched over to the Lock Up tent, somehow managed to squeeze down near the front and had an absolute riot, they were brilliant. And I'd say they were the best head liners of the weekend if Radiohead hadn't turned up on form.

Friday -

Kids in Glass Houses - Got up early, got drunk and danced around to them a bit, they played a good fun set and really worked the crowd up. Nice start to the day.

Frank Turner - Brilliant fun, the 'circle ho-down' during photosynthesis was brilliant fun, and I think EVERYONE got involved.

The View - Indie by numbers, not bad, but played too much of their new stuff, which is, frankly, rubbish.

Bloc Party - They weren't bad... but I'm not a fan, just hung around to secure a place for Radiohead. The singles that I knew were pretty good, and they seemed genuinely ecstatic at being there (for some reason? it's their 3rd year in a row...)

Radiohead - I think everyone's already mentioned how immense this was, so I won't bother going in to detail. Just fantastic.