Reading festival - the inthenews.co.uk review
Reading festival - the inthenews.co.uk review
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Thursday, 26, Jun 2008 05:59
inthenews.co.uk's Lewis Bazley continues to sacrifice his mental and physical wellbeing to bring you the highlights from three sunny days on the outskirts of a Berkshire industrial estate.
While the Bank Holiday weekend saw the conclusion of the Olympics, and festivities on Clapham Common, Reading - or Leeds, if you're a Northerner - was the place to be for the most rocking lineup of the summer.
Day one
After the very angry punk of Anti-Flag, Sam Duckworth, aka Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, gets things off to a far more professional start, with a superbly full sound and the Southend boy's voice strengthened by the richness of album two's improved production. With a Fair Trade banner hanging behind, it's not surprising when he exhorts the crowd to watch Rage Against the Machine later in the evening - but it's advice that's impossible to ignore.
Taking Back Sunday are way too quiet for such an anticipated set, providing a mix of material across their albums while frontman Adam Lazzara makes you wish he'd stop stumbling about with the microphone and just sing. Tell All Your Friends is stadium-sized but closing the show with highlights from album three indicate that the new material isn't quite finished yet (though newcomer Matt Fazzi is on top form in his first Reading appearance).
After an audience member makes a macabre suggestion during his improv session, Phill Jupitus retorts that being "f****d to death" would be "preferable to watching Babyshambles". Unfortunately for the Never Mind the Buzzcocks team captain and his improvisational assistants, they're soon drowned out by the thumping bass of Dizzee Rascal who, mercifully, doesn't have Calvin Harris with him to play the 'embarrassing white guy' role.
Biffy Clyro are on immense form, conjuring up the same reaction as Muse in that their sound is unfathomably large for three men alone. Saturday Superhouse is loud and intense, with Simon a tattooed talisman leading us through a set largely composed of cuts from the magnificent Puzzle.
Jack Penate asks Have I Been A Fool? as he begins and the adoring crowd reply in the negative, as the former UCL boy embarks on a competent, but not riveting set, though a rousing Torn on the Platform, with the entire tent in full voice, steadies the ship.
MGMT have predictable psychedelic overtures as they burst into Electric Feel and the Reading audience are far louder than their Glastonbury counterparts, helping turn Andrew Goldwasser's quiet, infrequently unintelligible vocals into something monumental and fashioning two unbeatable festival moments from triumphant versions of Time to Pretend and Kids.
Yet all who preceded them - and until Metallica, all that follows - fail to match up to the amazing Rage Against the Machine, opening clad in Guantanamo Bay jumpsuits and pounding through politically-charged, pulse-racing classics that inspire a moshpit all the way back to the mixing desk. A welcome return for one of the most relevant and committed bands of all time. Check back later this week for the full inthenews.co.uk review of Rage's Reading set.
Day two
The Automatic are unremarkable and samey, while Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong have a frontman of huge potential, cavorting like a frilly-shirted baroque prince as he bangs a drums through the 60s swagger of Lonely Buoy. The wait for the album could be unbearable.
The Subways enter to an intriguing burst of electronica before the concurrent bite and beauty of Kalifornia. Oh Yeah is as vitriolic as Alright is soothing though Billy Lunn's efforts to "have a party!" are somewhat upstaged by the spectacular exploits of the blonde yellow-clad spinning man, one of the most entertaining sights of the weekend.
White Lies have the same 'Ian McCulloch sings the Killers' vibe as at their stunning Camden Crawl appearance but this is still a wonderfully evocative performance with mournful, dramatic vocals, cinematic song-building and in the shape of Death and Unfinished Business, two hugely impressive anthems that will be gracing main stages at festivals in 2009.
We Are Scientists offer up an excellent cover of Ace of Base's 90s classic All That She Wants but, just as at Glastonbury, Seasick Steve steals the show on day three, with a ridiculously enjoyable set. His stunt of getting a girl on stage to singing Walking Man to is surprisingly moving, while the wizened singer's thankyous are genuine and his dry wit is brilliantly Southern - "this is a one-string guitar. it sounds like s**t" - without being anachronistic. Roll on the album.
Black Kids are on surprisingly early and in a tent too small for their popularity, but the interior is more suited to their sound, you hope. Even so, it remains as hollow a performances as their Glastonbury show and Reggie Youngblood's vocals are again very weak through Hurricane Jane is tight and triumphant.
Bloc Party's Kele Okereke comes on a little like a rapper for recent top 20 hit Mercury, throwing shapes without his guitar, and it's a little uncomfortable, but order is restored when we go Hunting for Witches, before a breathless dash through another new effort, Banquet and Two More Years. The new songs from Intimacy are intriguing without being wholly involving though this will come with time, while The Prayer is wondrous before a Silent Alarm one-two punch of So Here We Are and Like Eating Glass. "No matter what they say on Monday, we're having a moment, right?" he asks and you nod without realising.
And so to the Killers - it's an electrifying opening, but it swiftly becomes clear this will be an annoyingly quiet set.
Shadowplay comes and goes, and it's the crowd you can hear on every song - not because of the show being especially anthemic, but so hushed. The audience save When You Were Young with heartfelt vocals, but you can't escape a nagging feeling; the new Killers material might be amazing. It might make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up like the first time you heard the new Kings of Leon tracks. But there's just no way of telling when it's this quiet. Regular chants of "Louder!" and "Turn it up!" show just how irritated the crowd are at being prevented from wholesale involvement with a band they love, and even Brandon Flowers sans moustache and resplendent in croupier gear can't save an abysmal, underwhelming set. The ticker-tape denouement to an epic All These Things I've Done is such a saddening anti-climax that you feel guilty for witnessing it.
Day three
Late additions Bring Me the Horizon - pushed onto the Main stage lineup after the injury-enforced withdrawal of Slipknot - are hilariously screamy for such an ungodly hour, though even they manage to be louder than the Killers, to their credit.
Brooklyn pioneers Yeasayer bring powerful vocals and a mix of African and Middle Eastern influences, coming off as how you imagine Vampire Weekend might sound if they'd listened to more Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. Their signature effort 2080 is faster and more shambolic than its recorded counterpart but remains captivating, yet with the foursome having come on ten minutes late and only completing four songs before their exit, it's difficult to ignore that feeling of being short-changed.
But you're downright stiffed with Robots in Disguise, the electro duo comprised of Sue Denim (probably not her real name) and Dee Plume, better known as Noel Fielding's girlfriend. This is style over substance in its most irritating form, with dancing robots and glossy costumes fail to paper over the cracks in the severely limited music, which seems to be composed of drums too basic for Meg White, a three-note bassline and two shouty women doing impressions of their childhood tantrums. Steer clear.
The Whip, however, are a far more interesting proposition, banging out dense, intricate soundscapes like a possessed Atari game. The Manchester quarter do indulge in a bit of extended jamming however, which might have gone down well at Gatecrasher and Creamfields, but with most of the Reading crowd indulging in liquid, rather than powdered chemicals, it's a little tiresome.
As is the staggering lyrical simplicity of Plain White Tees but this can soon be ignored for the witticisms of Lightspeed Champion, who is in energetic form for his final show of the year, using probably the only violin at the festival and offering up some truly gorgeous harmonies.
Dropkick Murphys smack of a comedy pirate band for much of their set, until a majestic I'm Shipping Up to Boston, while Mindless Self-Indulgence - pushed far up the bill - show they belong back in 1999, meshing hip-hop beats with distorted riffage.
The Music, on the other hand, are on cracking form, with blistering renditions of Take the Long Road and Walk It and Strength in Numbers, Rob Harvey overcoming his demons and getting his dancing shoes on new single The Spike and rousing the Sunday crowd from their stupor with a thundering Getaway. They've been away, but you'd never know it from the might of their live shows.
It's a by-the-numbers performance from Feeder, though a bouncing Just the Day and a cover of Nirvana's Breed - the grunge greats' opening track when they played Reading in 1992 - help prepare the crowd for the rock majesty that awaits.
Tenacious D do their utmost to steal Metallica's thunder, with Jack Black clad in a wizard's costume while Kyle Gass is dressed as a green lizard, sparking a row in which Kyle 'quits' the band, allowing JB - as he shall be known henceforth - to offer heart-rending performances of the symbolic Dude, I Totally Miss You and Kyle Quit the Band. There's an unmistakeable excitement rippling through the crowd at being so close to a Hollywood star of JB's stature and even those previously impervious to the might of the D are impressed at their undeniable musical ability (especially in the case of Gass), culminating in a flawless live rendition of Beelzebub, the centrepiece from their 2006 movie.
Metallica merit their own review and will indeed be granted one on the hallowed pages of inthenews.co.uk later this week. Sufficed to say, Hetfield and co left all of Reading with neck pain by making headbanging mandatory as they bounded through cult classics Creeping Death, Harvester of Sorrow and And Justice For All. before embarking on the 'greatest hits' half of the set, as well as showcasing new songs Cyanide and The Day That Never Comes. As far as the latter efforts are concerned, it's clear that St Anger was a momentary blip in the career trajectory of the greatest metal band ever.
And so to bed. Reading's a much more impassioned festival than V, with those in attendance at the site out of a deep, genuine love of music in all its forms, rather than the transient, fair-weather slant of the crowds at Chelmsford and Stafford. On the negative side, you're likely to feel pretty ancient if you're older than. well, 21, probably, and just as V suffers from being enclosed and limited, Reading's as equally hampered by offering nothing more than music. But as three days dedicated to indulging your basest instincts as you listen to the heaviest of the heavy, it can't be beaten.
Lewis Bazley