Sunday 24th of August is OFFICIALLY the longest day of my life. And I mean in the GOOD way. Mid-afternoon I had an OMG that cup of coffee/cry I had was THIS morning. It felt like weeks previously so much had happened since. The coffee, a delight inducing caramel soya latté, didn't make me sob in public. The coffee was nice. Unexpectedly hearing
A Change Is Gonna Come in Starbucks had me lose control. Can't imagine what that's about.
By Sunday I was simultaneously ready to ravage every woman who walked past (lank hair and mud splatters are SO hot), couldn't conceive of ever living in a house again, and aching for my big empty bed and the absence of everyone. The festival vibe, the constant stimulation was a bit overwhelming.
Sunday was the focus of my devastation, if I had a heart to break then
Slipknot cancelling would have smashed it. Focusing on particular artists when attending a festival is never a good idea. As it turned out
Avenged Sevenfold also ended up cancelled and while I wasn't bothered about them this mucked around with the main stage's running order no end. And would have caused stress if I wasn't working so frantically to not be stressed by anything but just accept reality and look for the positive.
We tried to get into the arena early so we could see
Mindless Self Indulgence. I rushed through my bag of leaves and mayonaisse to be sure to not miss my hit of "Industrial Jungle Pussy Punk". To say me and Zesty were a bit excited about seeing MSI would be a hopeless understatement. It's hard to look forward to something so much, but maintain a level of 'I won't die if this isn't perfect'. Now it would have been CRIMINAL if MSI had taken to the stage at midday as planned as they were EASILY guilty of the best performance of the festival and deserved a big, appreciative audience. In my humble opinion. But I'm not humble at all: I'm RIGHT!
But enough of that, they didn't come on until the evening.
Bring Me the Horizon opened the main stage as replacement for Slipknot (*sob*). They sounded pretty good. Quite heavy, growly, screamy vocals, not too predictable, performing with a sense of humour and perspective. There were rather a lot of hostile projectiles flying from Us (well not ME, blates) to Them. The singer said "this stage is a mess, some of you really don't like our band" and dismissed it with a 'nevermind' or an 'oh well' and launched into their next song, which was glorious. He was playing The Fucking Reading Festival (TM) and knew exactly what it meant. Respect is due!
Then we popped over to see
Robots in Disguise in the dance tent. We were right at the front, if a little over to the side, so I got a good view coupled with a proper crowd vibe. OMG they were amazing. The lead up was all songs with 'robot' in the title. I had to slap Zesty with her own pink welly for not knowing who
Kraftwerk are. First these AWFUL robots came on to the little stage. The sort of robots you'd make if you dressed yourself in supermarket reject boxes and tinfoil: BRILLIANT. Then Dee and Sue came on and it was as if they were in the middle of the best party of their lives and their only desire was to share that with as many people as possible. It was fairly infectious. The music was bratty and funky and I will certainly be exploring it further. Second best performance of the festival. They had fun so we had fun. Thanks!
Henry Rollins was, didn't I talk about him already, excellent. There were laughs, he has a funny delivery, but his memoirs from travelling in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar weren't really funny. Eye opening. I particularly liked what he said about trying to kill a bug, and the bug looking up at him believing his murderous intent was an arm of hope and help and how this was like American foreign policy. Apt, as it struck me that all the bugs and spiders climbing up our bodies were most likely just trying to escape our thumping feet. I met some very pleasant small creatures over the weekend. Really.
Only caught a bit of
The Whip but they're also on the 'must explore further' list as it was lovely. Although it did inspire a slice of bad journalism from me, as this one bit brought to mind the phrase: "like the bastard offspring of
Crystal Waters and
Marilyn Manson ". It was like really emotional but with all the cold clarity of electronica. Mmm.
The brief slab of
Alexisonfire was ok. I didn't like the performance of Some Shit Comedian Called Chris.
Lightspeed Champion did new things with a violin but wasn't overly inspiring. The snippet of
Tenacious D told me that Jack Black is a movie star and I was there for music.
I was looking forward to seeing
Conor Oberst and his mystic flip flops or whatever it was (possibly I'll need some caffeine if I'm to make it to the end of this review.) as his voice is beautiful and with
Bright Eyes he gave me some of the lyrics I most treasure in the world, but it was boring and atmosphere-less, so we left and had a bit of a boogie with
Simian Mobile Disco who were ace and I wish I'd seen more of from deeper in the tent.
The main problem quiet, country-ish Conor faced was trying to follow
Pendulum who won the 'On the wrong stage' award with only the slightest competition from
CSS. OH. MY. ZOD. Pendulum's crowd was insane. The NME tent was rammed, we were about thirty rows of people behind that with probably another thirty behind us. I couldn't see or hear anything much, but my goodness I wanted to. We moved after a bit of an intuitive dance and did get something of an experience, but, goodness, what a vibe. Lucky Pendulum. Lucky people who got in early and were strong enough not to get crushed.
Headlining
Metallica were excellent. Coming onto the stage after a build up of Ennio Morricone's Ecstacy of the Gold (I think that's what it is) hasn't got old or tired yet. It's the most excitement inducing tune I know of. I rocked my little head off and screamed my little lungs out and it was joyous. They leaned heavily on the first four albums, mainly playing songs I don't like. Grr. But
Ride The Lightning was sublime and had my insides contorted into a painful climax. The explosions were exciting, especially during
One which is not only a naive statement on warfare but also one of the greatest metal tracks for relentless riffs. Their new song, Cyanide was it? was good on first listen.
In all they were confident and securely rockstarish, but humble(ish) too. James seemed surprised by the roar that greeted his enquiry about whether anyone had seen Metallica before, and constantly acknowledged the symbiotic relationship between band and audience. They were fresh and enthusiastic as well as being so very experienced. Not that I wasn't feeling old old old all weekend, well I haven't just taken my GCSEs and I don't have that as a topic of conversation, but it struck me as amusing that the songs they played were released long before most of the audience were born. The joy of music that can reach across the generations.
Enter Sandman got everyone moving and shaking and finishing with
Seek and Destroy (from, like, 1983! that's, like, ancient history!) (and ok *I* was probably still grieving for Adric and panting over Marmalade Atkins back then, and definitely had NO interest in thrash metal, but still, I was ALIVE in 1983!) was a bold move that paid off as most sections of the crowd went wild. Tho one bloke on the walk back to camp did complain they played for too long. Oh DO fuck off!
During the performance I slipped off to see
Cansei de Ser Sexy who very annoyingly clashed. There shouldn't have been any competition, one of these bands is packed with people I want to enjoy intimacies with and one of these bands I have seen before and were on stage for a full two and a quarter hours so I could easily leave them for an hour or so. The dance tent was absolutely rammed and the screens at the side were not showing the performance. People seemed to be having a good time, I did another of my climbs, VERY inadvisably onto one of the straps holding the tent to the ground and fell off a couple of times. FUN! DANGER! I stayed for
Meeting Paris Hilton and
This Month, Day 10, wiggled a bit, but then ran back to Metallica because headbanging with strangers is more satisfying than unfulfillable sexual fantasies.
Some people like doing stuff in chronological order, but I laugh at them.
We only got to see a little of
Hadouken! because of the rescheduled MSI slot, but it was fun and bleepy and impossible not to dance happily to. Really enjoyed them, wished I could have stayed, but had to go.
I insisted we should watch MSI from way back so poor little shortarse me would be able to see something. We'd had our in the thick of the crowd experiences with QOTSA, Justice, Santogold, we didn't need a repeat SURELY. But there was hardly anyone in front of the stage with ten minutes to go so I allowed myself to be persuaded. What a good decision that was. I built myself a little platform from the bark stuff they scatter underfoot. This helped me rise to five feet and half an inch: the ideal height for seeing bands! We were a few rows back from the front (probably more than a few but it felt close) with the perfect trajectory for seeing the stage so long as no one tall came and...oh hello.
It was perfect. Clear view of the screen right at my side, moderate view of the stage, excellent view of the one side where half the band came to play a lot. The crowd felt quite devoted, keen, warm, attentive. The sun twinkled but didn't blind. The rain had stopped. Then there they were. Launching right in to the simplistic, aggressive, funky
Shut Me Up. "I like my coffee black just like my metal" is high in the chart of lyrics I worship at the feet of that don't make me cry. I do indeed like my coffee black, although I've only a limited appreciation for black metal. It's, like, well profound.
To be honest I don't remember the music
that well. We roared with our hands in the air, and jumped around bu it certainly wasn't note perfect. The performance of
Lights Out would've been disappointing if I wasn't having so much fun, but that's part of the charm, they were enthusiastic and aiming for a good performance over a recreation of how the record sounds. There was a lot of programmed sound I didn't see anyone playing. And Lyn-Z may be the most beautiful woman in the world (I think everyone agrees on that point, this isn't personal opinion) and her playing bass with her head bent back to the floor trick is certainly impressive (tho Zesty says she did that WHILE crowd surfing when they played Brum earlier this year) but she could warm up a little. Smile woman, don't worry about wrinkles. Kitty the drummer was cheeky, and is a very attractive woman, it's a shame she's so in the shadow of her bass player, really. But Steve pulled such funny faces (I like sophisticated humour, me.) and there was so much banter between him and Jimmy, it was like in a family, kind of evil but deeply affectionate. Like the
Bloodhound Gang, not taking themselves at all seriously, having a ball and accidentally, it seems, making music that's so uplifting and so good to dance to. I'm certain most people just don't get the joke and can't appreciate the beauty. It's energetic, dark music made by beautiful people who know that beauty can mean whatever you want it to mean. It might not be big and clever, but AH-AAAAAH, that is why it IS big and clever, ah-aaaaah.
And Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. I would love to convey his performance in words but I don't think I have the skill. Jimmy Urine is like Willy Wonka only with the camp cranked up and a sinister overload, showing off at somebody else's birthday party, simultaneously stealing the limelight unforgiveably, but being so entertaining nobody could be mad at him. Well not for long. I want to adopt him. He poured Jack Daniel's on the stage and then licked it up. We went 'ew'. He signed the screens beside the stage with the name Urine. We went 'wooh'. He did the "Say 'I'm an individual'...say 'I can make my own mind up'...say 'I won't do what people tell me EVEN if they have a microphone'.." (I paraphrase) shtick. We laughed and cheered coz we're British and GET THE JOKE. (Not wishing to offend the non-British with a sense of humour.) He clambered from the stage and told us that we were the real Reading and onstage isn't, demanding mud, which he then rubbed all over his face and proclaimed "now we can not-shower TOGETHER". Oh he is everything I want in a showman. And when he closed their show by lipsynching There's No Business Like Show Business with extra happy jazz hands I nearly fell over because he was lovely, his band bring me joyjoy and time had flown.
And that's why MSI get the award for Performance So Entertaining That Time Became Meaningless And I Forgot My Damaged Mosh Muscles and Traumatised Colon from me. Well done, guys.
I'm finding it quite tricky to not whoop and clap at the end of every song I listen to. I miss the smell of grass underfoot. These brick walls are SUFFOCATING me. I can't wait until next year..who's with me???
Crystal Waters