THE Reading Festival 2008 Review

It's that time of year where the festivals are all ending, and we have to readjust to the horrors of everyday life. This being the first festival in which I'd actually camped over the whole weekend, I can safely say that I now realise camping is half of the fun of it all. A great, friendly atmosphere meant that hour long chats with random people were far from impossible, and many a friend were made.


The bands of the weekend

1 - Biffy Clyro - Blessed with one of the best crowds of the weekend, a topless trio blasted through a phenomenal set packed with energy from the openening Saturday Superhouse to the end. One of the few times where moshing was genuinely great fun and not just insanely painful cramped and pushy, the set became my highlight of Reading 08.

2 - Rage Against the Machine - Undoubtedly the most highly anticipated set of the festival, what with Bulls on Parade being blasted from sound systems of punters around the campsite, and chants of 'Fuck you I won't do what you tell me' whenever groups were ordered to put out their fires, it was pretty clear that the band weren't set to disappoint from the moment they appeared, dressed in Guantanamo Bay clothes, and bag's over their heads, and launching into a flawless performance of Bombtrack. The set was relentless and the energy didn't let up; Zach de la Rocha bouncing around the stage and Morello unleashing some awe inspiring guitar riffing, which climaxed in mass moshing and chanting to Killing in the Name Of. It was hard to see how Saturday and Sunday could live up to such a blinding first day.

3 - Does it Offend You, Yeah? - Playing a slot before Rage at the Festival Republic stage, the local band's electronic sounds got the crowd moving and the songs really came into their own live. Annoyingly we had to leave early to catch Rage but they warmed us up for the headliners nicely.

4 - Pendulum - Even before the band had begun, the NME stage was well and truly packed out; not helped by the cancellation of slipknot, who were due to play on the main stage at the same time. Scenes of mass jumping barrier jumping to escape the intensely packed crowd followed, but those who persevered were rewarded with a high octane set from the Aussie D'n'B / Rock band.

5 - Hadouken - Their charismatic frontman, along with with the fact that you could actually make out what he was saying and a great crowd meant that new life was breathed into tracks from what to me seemed like a pretty poor Music For an Accelerated Culture. Surprisingly good stuff.

Oh and I'm told by my friends that Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip and Babyshambles were both similarly great - though clashing with Rage I couldn't go see them...


Top Random Sights Spotted

• Man wearing a gasmask when he went to the toilet
• Random dudes doing a limbo chain using gaffa tape in the walkway (We then had a long ol' chat with them)
• Man dressed up in that Borat outifit
• People moving along a path inside their tent, rolling it along like some sort of freakish hamster wheel
• Lightsaber duelists
• A 'Stereo Battle' when two groups with portable stereos met in the path late at night


Other Bands of Note

1 - Lightspeed Champion - Good chillout band that seemed to spread happiness to the festival. It was hard not to raise a smile at the Star Wars theme being mixed into the epic Midnight Surprise, and Dev makes a great frontman.

2 - Killers - Despite it seeming like I'd heard the entire set the year before, watching the band headline Glastonbury, and despite tales of poor sound issues plaguing the performance from those stood further back, the Las Vegas band played a pretty good set and a couple of new songs.

3 - Yeasayer - Coming on late due to sound issues, the band eventually came on to play a shortened but enjoyable set that included 2080 and Sunrise

4 - Santogold - Enjoyable performance from the strange sounds of Santogold and her freaky dancers. Arguably Les Artists stands head and shoulders above her other tracks live though.

5 - Flogging Molly - Playing a packed out Lock Up tent, one of the few bands I saw who I knew nothing about turned out to be great fun, with their brand of Irish Punk Rock inspiring moshing as far back as outside the tent.

6 - Justice - Starting out with a couple of poorer album tracks, the band soon up-ed the game with crowd pleasers D.A.N.C.E and lastly their remix of Simian's We Are Your Friends. Only fails to be classed as a highlight because of some wanker in front of me who thought that it'd be really great to blow on her foghorn every few seconds. Didn't exactly make listening the most pleasurable experience.


Disappointments

1 - Justice running on late and causing me to miss nearly all of the Bloc Party set (Which apparently wasn't that good anyway)
2 - MGMT being far too packed to enjoy, shoving and pushing as opposed to dancing or moshing meant we decided to escape to outside after the opener, Electic Feel.
3 - Dirty Pretty Things having surely the worst crowd of the festival, refusing to join in even in a pretty-good rendition of Nirvana's In Bloom. Perhaps Carl could have helped by sticking in a Libertines track or two to get a singsong going?

Stuff I've heard of and wished I'd witnessed

• Insanely big piss take mosh pits & Wall of Death's at the worst-band-of-the-weekend The Plain White T's (See below)
• Gladiator style
• People slashing abandoned tents by the road, hiding in them, and jumping out of them to scare people.
• Everyone thinking the Foo Fighter's were doing a secret gig disguised as a band called the FF's, and a random crappy band turning up and getting booed off the stage.



All in all the festival was brilliant, and the urge to be back there right now is massive. With Glastonbury apparently on the way down, with poor ticket sales this year, and sound issues the last, it looks as if Reading and Leeds are becoming the festivals of the country, arguably of the world, and If I wasn't so broke from this years, my ticket for 2009 would already be purchased.