REAAAAAAADIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!
i realise i haven't done an update for near enough a month. this is probably due to the fact i can't be arssed. topped with the lack of internet i have at home at the momment. but i thought it was about time i wrote about reading fest...
so there was a drama with the tickets, i went to london on the wed to see panic! play to about 80 people. was crazy..but good. andy got me hammered as well. i was meant to be picking up the tickets for reading at the same time, but they got lost...was all massive drama. i knew i had to go though, this was the 10th anniversary of my first reading..it had to be done!
so on thursday, i was sitting at home, packed and ready to go... not knowing if i was actually going or not. eventually it all sorted out, and at about 4pm i headed to the festival site. ben was camped in the camper van section, an area i'd never ventured into before, but it was a good experience. maybe i'm getting old, we compared it to living in the suburbs whilst green was the inner city. any reading vetran can tell you green is where all the 16 year old first timers camp...
so i arrived, i used a luggage trolley this year...was a good plan i can tell you...didn't carry a thing! set up my tent and cracked open a beer. ben and i went for a wonder and found my cousin holly who was working on a food stand by the arena, we sat under the tree with the fairy lights and took in everything around us..it was good to be back.
after a trip back to the tent to meet all the others i was camped with, (we truly were a random bunch, friends of friends bringing their friends who bought their brother kinda thing) ben and i missioned off to meet jo, a girl he had been chatting to online for a while, and lloyd one of his friends from uni who was now doing a year placement in reading.
we ended up in the action aid tent with a whole heap of fucked people, and the random naked guy covered in bollocks to poverty stickers turned out to be lloyds friend. bizzare. ben left us to 'go see a man about a dog' and so lloyd and i went back to my campsite, we chatted around the campfire drinking beer...was funny that apart from kev who i'd met twice, and his girlfriend claire who i'd met once, i didn't know any of these people. still...i like meeting new people so it was all good :) lloyd invited me back to his campsite, so we trundled off to brown. We couldn't find where he was for a while..'i'm sure it was around here somewhere...' soon we found a whole group of brummies and knew we were in the right place... gradually as it started nearing 4am everyone went to bed, and we decided after much talk about drumming, it was time to call it a night. i thought it was stupid to make him walk me all the way back to red, although he was sweet and did offer. it was so misty, i couldn't even see the person in front of me... so i just kept to the steel pathway and held onto my can of carling...
So friday arrived..i got up and couldn't believe how much the field we were in had filled up between 4 and 8am... crazy. i was sitting in my pjs after having had my first pot noodle of the weekend, when my phone rang. it was andy.... 'were at the station! where do we go?' i told him to follow the other thousand odd people who would be heading to the site... so i sorted myself out and headed to the front gate to meet them. as we were all vip (ooher) they had to pick up their wristbands from the guest box office. however it wasn't opening for another hour. so the beers got cracked open at 10am... i still had the shakes from thurs..but what the hell..i was at a festival :)
so after heading to the camp and setting up, we headed to the 'vip area' to see what was on offer..heh. although beer was actually more expensive in here, which was crap. but the toilets were a hell of a lot nicer... :D
The band that kicked off our weekend wad fightstar on the main stage. these guys have come along way, although i'm not really a fan...after watching the reception they got the year before in the radio 1 tent..they've done well at turning people's opinions of them.
andy, jess, tristan and ben rocking out.
andy and helz take the piss out of emos early on...
after fightstar it was time for panic! the crowd was huge..so many people were there to see them. and some idiot thought it would a good idea to throw a bottle at the singers head. he got a direct hit and knocked him fully out. everyone wondered if they would come back on or not after the rasmus incident a few years previous. after a few annoyed words they carried on, and we got our groove on. can't help feeling they were all a bit subdued by the incident though. it does annoy me...if you don't like someone, don't go and see them. end of. don't ruin it for others.
another band i saw worth mentioing were bromhead's jacket. so much energy...and comedy thrown in. 'look at all the great flags..whats that one? kenya? ok then....represent' and the singers decleration on how much he hated carling. while holding one and playing in the carling tent. hehe. oh and the pure rock star smashing the guitar at the end. brilliant. a band to look out for.
holly only got away from the stall for a band or two a day, and she agreed to come watch the subways with me. anyone who knows me will know how much of a connection i have with this band through my dad. and that i had lyrics from 'with you' read at his funeral. they started with it, which i think was a good thing as it got it out the way and we jumped around for the rest of the set.
other bands i saw were, send more paramedics, a bit of fall out boy, kaiser cheifs, rise against and a bit of franz ferdinand.
after a stunning day,during the kaiser cheifs the rain started to fall...it wasn't heavy though so was fairly refreshing..
crazy dancing...
rain rain rain...
we got bored of franz, went to check out primal scream but the tent was far too rammed to get near, so we headed back to vip area where andy did a great umbrella dance for us... we were so cool...
back to the camp we went... and again the rain started, so we all bundled into tents..was a good way to get to know our crew.
a late night, and so much laughter my tummy muscles had a work out. beer and spliffs continued... sucky sucky 5 dolla and slag in the doorway jokes. man you had to be there. i love it when everything is that funny.
saturday arrived...and aiden kicked off the main stage. i love to hate this band. i can't explain it. they got the crowd to do a full on charge at each other at 12...crazy crazy stuff.
rockin to aiden ;)
i stayed at the main stage to watch flogging molly...i was on my own but still danced like a fool..they are so much fun and hold good good memories for me.. his eyes they closed and his last breath spoke... ahh good times...
ben wanted to go see the automatic so i went with, they were actually quite good..all i knew was the monster song so i was pleasently impressed with the rest. and they got glc and capdown on stage...was good times.
so they time came for one of my fave bands..alexisonfire. damn i love them. dallas green's voice blows me away. holly came to watch them with me which was cool. they played a lot of new stuff, which i really like. for some reason they finished 20 mins early.. but this meant we could catch the end of feeder which holly wanted to see.. feeder are such a good festival band..we danced it was fun :)
it started to rain but you can see the sun coming out in the background. love it.
after a bit of the streets and a mission back to the tent for more beer :) i came back and flicked between some coheed and anti flag. met the others and headed down the front for muse. i actually couldn't see a thing the whole set, andy lifted me up at one point and i could see there were screens and things on the stage, i really couldn't see anything at all. but it didn't seem to matter. i'm not the biggest muse fan in the world but they were truly amazing..i was blown away. apart from a small incident where lee got piss all over his face, it was amazing. other bands i checked out were the bled, plan b, and hawthorne heights.
so it was back to the camp and good convo round the camp fire with drink a plenty... not quite as crazy as the night before, think people were a bit burnt out...but still we had fun and played stupid word games... richard got excited by the neighbours playing johnny cash and then everyone went to bed heehe
sunday came around all to quickly. all the boys went into town for shits and sunday roasts. it was all the girls at the campsite and claire decided to dye her hair pink.
after a bit of mastadon and killswitch, chrissy and i went for a wander, armed with a ridiculous amout of booze. we got pretty pissed, had a quick dance in the dance tent, tried on stupid hats looked round the stalls.was cool.
we met everyone before taking back sunday, they have improved over the years, and yes call me emo i really actually enjoyed them.
after that came less than jake. they were def one of my highlights.
less than jake jazz hands...
chrissy and i decided it would be fun to get into the giant circle pit. yup we were def pissed. especailly crazy seeing as chrissy had flip flops and a bikini top on.
circle pit!
we had loads of fun. they made the crowd sit down and then chrissy couldn't get up again. was so funny.
after this we went to see glc in the nme tent. whoever put them in a tent should be shot. you could not get even slightly near the tent, we saw an opening people were squishing through and followed...it led us to behind the disabled area. the security guy was telling us all to move, but soon realised we couldn't get out as so many people had followed us, so he gave up. they were so funny...'fuck you alicia keys' ahh genius. richard and i started on a 2 litre bottle of vodka and dr p i managed to get in... was good fun.
the others all left us, and richard and i headed to slayer with our vodka. where we finsihed the whole thing. being hammered during slayer proved comical. we were rocking our hearts out. there was a couple in front of us making out, and then proceded to groping, and then worse, richard tried throwing bottles but they went about 20 feet in the wrong direction..so chants of 'get a tent' followed. ahh the comedy.
helz and richard rocking to slayer
a bit of my chem followed...they got a hardcore bottle reception, but stuck it out. their new stuff didn't sound half bad either.
placebo were hugely disappointing, a techincal hitch meant we saw 20mins of boobs. not like i'm complaing or anything.
we all aranged to meet before pearl jam. was the first time the whole red camping crew were together...
my mate becky came to join us as well...was good to see at least one band with her over the weekend, even better that it was the final band.
helz and becky
pearl jam were amazing...i've always wanted to see them and they didn't disappoint..plus the fact we were merry..was all good. they seemed really overwhelmed by it all. we had a cracking time..we were def the annoying people singing along and jumping around...
andy and rich
and again...
after pearl jam we thought we would have a quick beer in the vip area. ahem. we continued with jazz feet (a branch out from jazz hands) and when spandau ballet came on that was it. we were staying for the aftershow party.
we danced like loons and had a few spliffs and headed back to the camp when it all eneded about 2. sadly most the crew had gone to bed by this time, but we stayed up and continued on. and when it started to rain all crammed into my tent.
eventually in the wee hours of the morning we called it a night...or morning i guess.
monday arrived, we packed up and all headed towards the station, i left them outside the rivermead however as i had the glory of getting picked up.
and then it was all over for another year.