With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Music reviews, gig reviews, fun trivia and extra added random stuff!

Reading Festival 2010 – The Preview August 26, 2010

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 10:40 pm
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Tomorrow morning dear readers I will be travelling to the Reading Festival. Now for those of you from outside the UK who think this might have something to do with books, well it doesn’t, it’s all about rock music, with a dash of dance and comedy. I have been in attendance for more years than I care to recall now, many of those with my good friend Nick Horslen and that partnership is maintained this year once again.

I intend to provide you with a review post of the festival, but whether that will need to wait until Monday or Tuesday depends on the connectivity! The headliners this year are a really eclectic selection in my opinion. Friday night is Guns N Roses, who let’s face it aren’t Guns N Roses anymore are they? Saturday night brings Canada’s Arcade Fire, who I think are very good but a somewhat strange choice for headliners, but they are good friends of David Bowie and he has appeared on stage with them before, so my fingers are firmly crossed. Then to close on Sunday night it’s the turn of reformed pop punkers Blink 182. They are my son’s favourite band of all time, so he will certainly have a great festival and maybe in a few years we will get to see him play the hallowed Reading stage with his band Steal The Smile.

OK so here’s the deal, if you can’t make the festival, check the festival website then comment on this post and tell me the bands you’d like me to check out on your behalf and if I can fit them in I will. But if you are there feel free to get in touch via the blog, maybe I’ll even let you provide a guest review 🙂

 

YHR Radiowaves Gig @ Stereo in York 12th August 2010 August 13, 2010

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 10:51 pm
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I had the pleasure of attending yet another great gig promoted by Mr Simon Pattinson from York. It was another benefit for York Hospital Radio and £300 was raised. As usual Simon promoted a brilliant gig, you can’t really beat four excellent bands for £5 can you? But firstly let me apologise for missing Rosie who were the first on the bill. But all the people I spoke to that saw them rated them very highly.

The first band I saw on the night was the Paper Tigers. A great band name in my opinion and whilst their name says paper their sound is so much stronger. A female singer with a great rock vocal ability, a superbly tight rhythm section and a guitar sound reminiscent of Steve Jones aural attack with the Pistols. I’m sure from a visual perspective they might be compared to the likes of Paramore. But believe me these guys are bloody good in their own right. They can rock out and they can be mellow. I particularly loved their song “Rebellion” and frankly anyone who writes a song called rebellion is more than alright with me! I hope they go on to bigger things.

The next band up were the Shadracks, how good a name is that? A really exciting band who I suspect really know how to party. They’re from Scarborough and even have a song in their repertoire about that very town, which they referred to as a shit hole. But then don’t we all think the town we come from is a shit hole. Hillingdon, where I came from certainly is. The Shadracks sound was reminiscent of the Arctic Monkeys before they got a bit pretentious and up themselves. They also carry a great dose of superb northern wit with them. They had, sadly, run out of CDs ( a real shame, because I definitely would have bought one!) but to make up for it they brought along a load of hand-made party goody bags containing sweets and tied up with a glow in the dark wrist band. All this was hand crafted by the singers Mum. Now that is a brilliant touch! I absolutely loved their song “Lucy Locket”. Their disco Bomb activity worked well, getting everyone to crouch down and then, on the count of four, jump up and pogo. I have seen the Streets do this at Reading, but that audience was far more sedate than the Shadracks audience! I would definitely pay to see these guys again.

The headliners were Surprise Fire, these guys really know how to rock and how to work the audience. I bought their EP before they had finished their third song! A really powerful guitar sound and a great heavy drummer. This is a band with a social conscience (check out their song “Coal”) and a great sense of fun (they had us all join in a rendition of Happy Birthday for their friend Daniel). The singers vocal wasn’t mixed very well for the first couple of songs, but even then they were still very good and just got better! I can see them working really well as part of a support package to someone like Rage Against The Machine. They would go down a storm at the Reading Festival given the chance.

So after my last gig it seem that normal service has been resumed. Regular readers will know that my last gig review contained a view of probably the worst band I have ever seen. This gig was excellent and I would definitely seek out all the bands again given the chance. I will also check out Rosie, seeing as how working late made me miss them.

Finally, if Simon can fill Stereo, how come whenever my son’s band Steal The Smile play at the FaceBar in Reading there is hardly anyone there? It’s all about promotion in my opinion, some promoters promote and many others don’t!

 

Face Bar Pop-Punk Fun Fest – Sunday 25th July 2010 July 28, 2010

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 8:43 pm
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First off let me apologise to all the bands that I didn’t get to see on Sunday, especially the headliners from Brighton, Mimi Soya. Sadly work commitments meant I to leave immediately after a great set by a band you’ve heard about many times before on this blog, Steal The Smile. But more about them later. I saw four bands in the end at a total cost in the region of £100 and a total mileage of 400 miles. So at £25 and 100 miles per band did I get value for money? Overall yes. Did I get value for money from every band? You can judge that by reading below, but can you guess who didn’t provide value for money? Once again at this venue there was hardly anyone in the audience, what is it with promoters? Do they not get that their job title consists of the actual word ‘promote’?

First up were the Mardies. I thought they were pretty good, although some of their songs seemed a little ‘samey’. The clear exception to this rule was the rather excellent “Dancing With Thieves” (I hope I got the title right girls!). My first impression of this all girl band was of Sixpence None The Richer with balls. So overall not a bad performance and their harmonies were immense (4 out of 5)

Next up were Nicotine, which is supposed to be addictive, but this lot were a long way from addictive in my humble opinion. Guys if you are reading this review you might wish to stop now! The two vocalists were really trying the shouty, screamy vocal style, for which you need to have really good vocal styling, clearly they didn’t. It was also bloody difficult to understand anything they said, even when they were speaking. One of the guitarists/ vocalists had a Sandie Shaw thing going on with his feet going bare. If that helped improve his vocals I’m glad I didn’t hear him sing with his shoes on! Some of their guitar work was ok, but for me it felt like the drummer was playing a completely different song in a completely different band. Overall it seemed like their mission was to take the wonderful simplicity of someone like the Ramones (but not the ability) and then complicate the fuck out of it. They finished with a cover version of the Troggs “Wild Thing” which included the worst vocal of the night and probably the worst cover of this great song that I have ever heard and I have heard plenty. Boys, don’t give up the day jobs (1 out of 5)

The third band on was the excellently named the Fortunate. They’re from Basingstoke and have been going for around 18 months. They consist of three guys (bass, guitar and drums) and an excellent female singer who also played keyboards. Their sound is quite crisp and fresh, although for the first song the vocals were way too low in the mix. But after that it was great. The diminutive singer, Natalie, reminded me a little of Clare Grogan off of Altered Images. Overall the fortunate are a very tight band with a great pop sensibility. I would certainly pay to see them again and I purchased their excellent 3 track CD. (5 out of 5)

Finally, as far as my day went anyway, it was the turn of the mighty Steal The Smile, who were once again without Henry who was off on a solo acoustic tour of Grimsby and Scunthorpe. Well ok I made that bit up, he is on holiday in the USA. Oli, Johnny and Luke played well enough for Henry not to be missed on the night. They really are getting tighter as a band and some of their playing seems to intuitively read what one of the others is doing or going to do. Johnny was by far the best drummer from all the four bands I saw at the gig on Sunday. The boys played a five song set which included two relatively new songs; “Always Wrong” and “Two Years Down” both are now available on MySpace and the second is still available on this blog by clicking here. You can also read more of my STS blog posts by clicking here. Obviously I would hand over my cash to see these boys again and sometime soon too. (5 out of 5) Keep on rocking guys!

 

Eurovision Song Contest 2010 May 30, 2010

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 8:12 am
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The UK entry in this years contest was a song written by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman off of Stock Aitken Waterman. It was performed by 19-year-old Josh Dubovie and it is called “That Sounds Good To Me“. But clearly it didn’t sound good to the rest of Europe as for the third time in eight years we came last. OK I know all the conspiracies about neighbourly voting with the Balkan States voting for each other just like the Scandinavians. But really how good was our song? In my opinion it was ok and Josh’s performance was very good. But as the Catwoman said to me during the show “you could almost imagine Kylie singing that a few years ago” It is that which is probably the crux of another UK failure, the song was 80s cheesy disco and very dated.

Still at least it was better than the atrocious and out of tune nul points performance of Jemini back in 2003. The sad thing is that wherever we finish we will always be in the next years contest in the final. Germany, Spain and France will be too. Simply because it is those four countries that fund the whole shebang. Read about the whole thing on the beeb by clicking here

My personal favourites last night were Iceland and Turkey. Kind of Euro Dance and slightly rockier respectively. When Lena sang the German winning entry, “Satellite” I did say somewhat prophetically (or more like a lucky bloody guess) that this one is the winner. It was probably helped by the fact that it has been heard all over Europe already, but it’s not a bad song. Although I do find some of her English enunciation a little strange. But then coming from someone like me who speaks just one language (unless bollocks, bullshit and double dutch count) that’s a bit rich. So congratulations to Lena for achieving Germany’s second win. The first was with Nicole’s “A Little Peace” back in 1982.

Can we learn from Germany? They won in 1982 with Nicole and this year with Lena. So next year perhaps the UK's entry should be sung by Doris, Ethel or Chardonnay!

There were some rather strange moments last night. The Spanish performance was interrupted by a random guy in a stupid hat jumping on the stage and dancing. Personally I didn’t think he looked out-of-place among the toy-like dancers providing a backdrop to a dreadful song. Sung by someone who looked like a reincarnated Leo Sayer. Then there was Armenia who sang a song about apricot stones, what was that all about then? Well apricot stones obviously, but I mean why? Apparently the apricot is their national fruit. Then there was the Belarus entry “Butterflies”. Graham Norton had said before their appearance that the dresses they were wearing would be hotly desired by every little girl in Europe aged under 10. I didn’t understand why until partway through the song when they transformed into dresses with added butterfly wings. They also nearly managed to finish below us but picked up some massive votes towards the end.

wtf?

So let us now ponder on what the UK will do next? Personally I think we should ask Muse and Radiohead to combine for next years entry. It might not win but it would be credible and blow everyone else away! How else will we add to that illustrious list of previous UK winners Sandie Shaw, Lulu, Brotherhood Of Man, Bucks Fizz and Katrina & The Waves? Let us also hope that this has no similarity with the result of the impending World Cup in South Africa!

You can find the official Eurovision site here

And you can find the Wikipedia take on Eurovision here

 

Steve Harley at the Grand Opera House in York 28th May 2010 May 29, 2010

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 5:19 pm
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Last night I went to see Steve Harley off of Cockney Rebel at the Grand Opera House in York. I saw him there four or five years ago as well. He was excellent then and he was superb last night as well. He played some new stuff and classic oldies, not just the big hits. Stuff like “Sebastian”, “Judy Teen” and “Tumbling Down” both of which I love.

The band were excellent and include Stuart Elliott the original drummer from Cockney Rebel who formed the band with Steve in 1972. According to Wikipedia Steve is now 59, that makes me feel old, but also it seems at 51 I’m not far behind. The backing vocals were provided by the Lartey Sisters, they were also his support act. Well worth turning up on time for, unlike quite a number of people who stayed in the bar. Check them out on MySpace here. Every member of the band was on top form, a supremely skilled bunch. I thought the guitarist looked a little like Stephen King, which is fine with me as I am a massive King fan

He played two cover versions. “Here Comes The Sun” which he had a hit with in the 70s and also a Daniel Johnston song, which he handled really well

Steve Harley has a brilliant rapport with his audience and showed that with some of the between song banter and he also told a great story about busking in the early 70s. The song I was most pleased to hear again, because I haven’t heard it in ages was “Mr Raffles (Man It Was Mean)” Overall he was on stage for around two hours and as you might have guessed he climaxed with “(Come Up And See Me) Make Me Smile” He did mention how most local radio DJs and much of the press seem to assume that song is pretty much all he has done. But added some good words for Johnnie Walker and Steve Wright, both of whom in his opinion really ‘get it’ I’m not surprised either, I have always admired the brilliant Johnnie Walker.

So overall it was an excellent night, just like the last time and probably the next time as well! Well done and thanks to you Mr Harley!

Check out Steve’s official website here

You can purchase Steve’s new album by clicking here

 

Brits Special “I’m On The Right Track, Yeah I’m On To A Winner” February 17, 2010

Filed under: Observation,Review — justwilliam1959 @ 6:33 am
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It’s February 2010 (the 16th to be precise) and ‘With just A Hint Of Mayhem’ is coming to you live from the Brit Awards 2010. Well ok almost live and actually not really there but just in front of the telly! Just like last year really, if you want to relive my post from last years Brits click here

This years awards were hosted by the rather spiffingly talented Mr Peter Kay (Garlic Bread?) Interestingly the ad breaks featured a Master Card advert which was the story of last years Outstanding Achievement award winners the Pet Shop Boys doing a concert at someone’s house! Who would you choose to do a gig at your house? I would opt for David Bowie or Kate Bush!

First up to perform was the delectable Lily Allen. She sang “The Fear” with quite a strange cast of dancers; Pram Pushers, Men in Bowler Hats, Suits with no trousers and Union Jack Boxer Shorts and also some Umbrella Parachutists (is that a word?) dressed in pink camouflage gear. truly spectacular indeed! Lily was wearing a black hot pants type outfit, which I rather liked but Catwoman definitely didn’t! Hmmmmmmm I wonder why?

The first award was presented by Page 3 and ‘I’m A Celebrity’ veteran Sam Fox. She was introduced by Peter Kay as Sam Fleetwood, Mick Fox, Sam Fox in reference to the debacle that was the Brits presented by Sam and Mick Fleetwood off of Fleetwood Mac in the late 1980s. She presented the Brits Memorable Performance of the last 30 years. It seemed we were expecting a list of nominees, but there didn’t appear to be one. The award was given to the Spice Girls and was collected by Scary and Ginger or Mel B and Geri Halliwell as they prefer to be known these days

The next award was for Best British Male Artist and was presented by Andy Serkis who played Gollum in Lord Of The Rings and most recently played Ian Dury. The award went to the hugely entertaining Dizzee Rascal, thank god it wasn’t Robbie Williams! After this we endured JLS performing “Beat Again” they arrived on stage on strings, which confirmed my suspicions that these pop muppets are indeed puppets!

Mel B returned to the stage to present the next award to Jay Z or Jason Zed as Peter Kay called him. He won Best International Male Solo Artist. He spoke of his Glastonbury appearance and mentioned (tongue in cheek methinks) how he was influenced by the Spice Girls.

Noddy Holder off of Slade presented the best album of 30 years of the Brits award to Liam Gallagher for the Oasis album What’s The Story Morning Glory. Obviously Liam swore because the sound disappeared and the ‘audio has been muted’ appeared in the corner of the screen. As he left the stage he threw the microphone into the crowd and allegedly also threw the award into the crowd as well. Peter Kay referred to him, rightly so, as a knobhead when he did leave the stage.

Kasabian then played live and for me they were somewhat lacklustre, what did you think. I thought the flames at the front of the stage were more exciting.

The next award, the Breakthrough Act, was presented by Geri Halliwell (was this a Spice Girls take over?). Geri had to apologise for her earlier failure with Mel B to thank the other Spice Girls! It went to, shamefully in my opinion JLS. Pixie Lott, La Roux and Friendly Fires were all also nominated and missed out to the aforementioned muppets!

Courtney Love presented the Critics Choice Award to the delightful Ellie Goulding, I think I may have to download her album very soon.

Next to perform was the fantastic Lady Ga Ga. In my opinion she is a true star and a real mold breaker. She wore a kind of lace mask, fright wig and a body stocking that seemed to reveal more than it covered. A great performance and someone I would love to see in concert. She also dedicated her first song to the late, great and sadly departed Alexander McQueen.

Idris Elba off of London’s Burning (who he?) presented the Best British Group Award to Kasabian. Personally I felt it should have gone to Muse. Incidentally up to this point I had guessed every winner correctly!

Cat Deeley presented the first of Lady GaGa’s awards for International Breakthrough Artist. This was followed by a fantastic and inspired duet from Dizzee Rascal and Florence off of Florence and the Machine. It was the classic and one of my all time favourite songs; “You Got The Love” which was originally by the Source featuring Candi Staton.

There followed a short film clip of Prince Harry extolling the virtues and wonderful charitable work of the Brits Trust. He came across as quite amusing and very human and showed that one is down wiv da kidz! Which coming from someone like me who is very anti royal is big praise indeed.

über Knobhead Jonathan Ross presented the Best International Female award to (no surprises here) Lady GaGa. her second of the night so far!

Dame Shirley Bassey presented the Solo British Female award, one which she herself actually won in 1977. It went to one of my current favourite singers, Lily Allen. Lily wore a red wig, which she claimed was to make it hard for the cameras to pick her out for that ‘disappointed’ shot had she not won. Incidentally she clearly seemed surprised and very giggly!

Jay Z and Alicia Keys then duetted on a storming “New York State Of Mind”. Mr Z is my second favourite rapper after Eminem and Alicia possess one of the finest soul voices of her generation.

Mika presented the Best International Album Award to Lady GaGa, her third and final Brit of the night. I believe the new Queen Of The Brits deserved every one of them!

Cheryl Cole then performed “Fight For Your Love” amidst a cast of a thousand dancers. For me the dark glasses and dance moves suggested our Cheryl is something af a Janet Jackson wannabe. I didn’t spot Cashley in the crowd though, perhaps he texted her earlier!

Alan Carr had the honour of giving the Best British Single Award to JLS, well that one was voted for by Sun readers so what do you expect?

Tom Ford (is he a fashion designer?) presented the Best British Album Brit to Florence and the Machine for the brilliant album ‘Lungs’. Florence gave a very gracious acceptance speech. ‘Lungs’ is one of my favourite albums of recent years I also loved her set at last years Reading Festival

Finally the winner of the Outstanding Achievement Award who also had the honour of closing the show was Robbie Bloody Williams. He performed a medley of hits, including a song which I really do not like, “Angels” As regular readers might have guessed the appearance of Robbie was definitely not a highlight for me.

So in summary 3 Brits to Lady GaGa and sadly 2 to JLS and in my opinion that is 2 too many!

 To finish here are a few Brit News links for you;

Sky News

The Guardian

 

Ruby Turner at the Theatre Royal York Friday 5th February 2010 February 8, 2010

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 11:18 pm
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On Friday 5th February 2010 I had the real privilege of seeing Ruby Turner live. It was a last-minute thing for me following my regular e-mail from the Theatre Royal in York. I had heard of Ruby a long while ago (I am a music anorak don’t forget!) in particular for her excellent contribution to Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. She referred to him as Jools or Mr Holland, that’s a sign of how close she is to him 😉

Ruby at the Fountain

Ruby writes or co-writes many of her own songs, which incidentally ws something I didn’t know. Some of those songs are truly amazing, especially the appropriately named “So Amazing”. However for me she really excelled in both her choice and performance of covers. Starting with the oft covered “I’d Rather Go Blind“. I first heard this song in a version by Rod Stewart in the early 70s. Ruby’s version is exquisite, especially when she goes into a capella mode.

The Magnificent Ruby Turner

But she surpassed herself with her version of Lorraine Ellison’s “Stay With Me” which remains one of my most favourite songs ever. Ruby really does the song justice (unlike David Essex’s cover from many moons ago!) Her encore was an excellent version of the Staple Singers classic “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)” which she used as a superb way of showcasing her band which had talent to spare.

If you get the chance to see Ruby live DO NOT waste it. In my opinion she is the nearest modern-day equivalent to Aretha Franklin. Ruby was also born in the same year as me (1959 fact fans!) , so no wonder she is so talented! 😉

 

Reading Festival Day 3 – Sunday 30th August 2009 August 31, 2009

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 4:45 pm
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Well firstly apologies for the delay in the delivery of this post but it was a long journey home and basically I’m bloody knackered, this old body just can’t take festivals like it used to. I’m sure my fellow ‘old boy’ festival buddy Nick H would concur with that, wouldn’t you Nick?

Anyway on to the final day of the Reading Festival for 2009. Who’s up for 2010? We get there reasonably early on Sunday to make the most of what was supposed to be a sunny day but turned out somewhat grey in the weather stakes, but definitely not grey in the music stakes! First up we saw In Case Of Fire on the NME Radio 1 Stage, these guys all wore the same red shirts, I’m not sure a band uniform works for me (apologies to Devo and Kraftwerk and others). Anyway aside from that these boys certainly knew how to play some excellent punk power pop. Next up it was Noah and the Whale on the Main Stage. I had a few of their songs before but live I felt they were much better. For me they were kind of folky pop with shades of Aztec Camera, perhaps Prefab Sprout and even Lou Reed at times. Their singer even used an electric toothbrush on his guitar at one point, now that is warped. But perhaps slightly more disturbing was that on many occasions the drummer seemed to be miming to a completely different song to the one that the band were playing!

After this we decided to pay another visit to the Festival Republic stage following our success with 65 Days Of Static yesterday. However this was not another one of those finds, we saw the XX and we really weren’t excited by them at all, kind of trippy Indie which seemed incredibly dull, but they seemed to have a lot of fans so to each their own. We saw one song from the Teeth on the BBC Introducing stage. They seemed very good, but we only saw one song, they came across as a geeky, space age version of Sha Na Na. If Sha Na Na were the Flintstones the Teeth would probably be the Jetsons.

Back to the Main Stage now for an appointment with Aussie band the Living End. A bit like Green Day but with a Double Bass. They’re back in the UK for a tour later this year, I reckon they’ll be worth checking out. After this we had perhaps our quirkiest moment of the festival, we tripped across to the Alternative Stage and chanced upon Adam Buxton who in simple terms showed a few film clips and gave out some free snacks. However the quality of the films was truly wonderful, especially the literal video for Aha’s “Take On Me” give it a search on Youtube, I will add it to a post soon as well.

Then it was back to the NME Radio 1 Stage to see the Passion Pit. This is a US band with a sound that could rip a hole in the fabric of space time and a singer who comes across as Leo Sayer begatting Mika whilst on hard drugs. (Ha! I bet you thought begatting only happened in the bible didn’t you?). Next we were back to the Main Stage for the rest of the day. Starting with the brilliant Vampire Weekend, these guys know how to party, the African tinged guitars help I’m sure. I love their first album and this time they even played a few new songs. I also love M79 and whilst I know it’s about a bus in New York, does anyone else think the instrumental hook sounds remotely like “The Wheels On The Bus”? I’d love to know. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were next and just as I had made up my mind for the best costumes seen at the festival this year along comes Karen O wearing something that must have come together after an explosion at a plastic recycling plant! A great set though, but don’t you think her shouty between song voice grates a little? Incidentally until that point my vote for best costume went to the Where’s Wally team, I think there were six of them dressed as the elusive Wally (to my friends from across the big pond, you’ll know Wally as Waldo). The most disturbing costume that I saw was the guy in the Nuns Habit with a pig mask. scary! If you were one of the Wally’s or the Nun Pig I’d love to hear from you!

Bloc Party were the penultimate act on the Main Stage. I have managed to miss them all the other occasions they have appeared here, but I’m glad that I caught them this time, they played a storming set and their laser show was pretty good too.

But this year I think Reading saved the best until last with probably the best headliner I have ever seen at Reading; the mighty Radiohead (can we call them the ‘Head?). I thought that being Reading they might play “Creep” but to open with it, I don’t think anyone expected that! Their light show was truly amazing and for me they proved once again why they are easily the most influential band of their generation. How will the organisers follow that in 2010? Watch this space to find out and in the meantime let me know who you’d like to see at the event next year. Whether you liked the same acts that I did or you liked the ones that I didn’t I really hope you had a great festival and a safe journey home

 

Reading Festival Day 2 – Saturday 29th August 2009 August 30, 2009

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 9:55 am
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Hello once again dear readers and here is the second of a series of three bulletins from the muddy trenches at the front line of the Reading Festival. Actually I lied about the mud it’s more like a dust bowl. In fact the dust kicked up by the mosh circles on Saturday were kicking up more output than the smoke machines on the main stage. Unlike yesterday today was more of a Main Stage day for us.

We arrived just in time to see the whole of the Eagles Of Death Metal’s set. OK death metal they’re not, but fantastic full on rock band they are. These guys know how to party and party we did! well we bounced up and down a lot anyway. The video screens showed Dave Grohl off of the Foo Fighters and Nirvana backstage with his daughter, she’s clearly not ready for fame yet as she covered her eyes the whole time, a real sweetie though 🙂 Josh Homme off of Queens Of The Stone Age was also in the backstage crowd

Next up was the excellent Enter Shikari and like the EODM these guys know how to party, I will go so far as to say that I thought they were among the top 10 bands I have ever seen at Reading and I have been going a looooooong while! We then took a short but offensive break in the comedy tent with Gary Delaney and Doug Stanhope. These guys, particularly Doug, know how to take things right to the edge! Bloody funny indeed! After this we returned to the Main Stage for Ian Brown and for me he was without doubt the biggest disappointment of the day. He really didn’t seem quite with it and sounded out of tune much of the time.

After Ian Brown things could only get better and we headed to the BBC Introducing stage to see the stupendous Soft Toy Emergency. Regular readers will know that I have seen this band before and today, once again they were truly on fire. This will be a very big band indeed and if they’re not on the NME Radio Stage next year I will eat two of the festivals foot long frankfurters!

To fill time before I next visit to the Main Stage we wandered over to the Festival Republic tent and chanced upon a truly excellent instrumental band, 65 Days Of Static. I must confess that I had never heard of them before, but check them out I’m sure that you’ll love them! So back to the Main Stage, the crowd for the Prodigy was so vast that at one point I was facing away from the stage and had to wait for a crowd surge before I could turn around. The band were easily up to their usual high standards though, Firestarter was a massive favourite with the crowd. How could anyone follow them? Well the Arctic Monkeys tried, but for me whilst they have great songs and play really well there is no real personality there. So we left about half way through their set and caught the last part of the Gossip in the NME Radio 1 tent. Absolutely brilliant, Beth Ditto was on great form. Standing In The Way Of Control blew the roof off and she even came back on at the end with a towel on her head for a short sing along of Queen’s We Are The Champions!

Gotta go now and get ready for Day 3, so until the next time folks!

 

Reading Festival Day 1 – Friday 28th August 2009 August 29, 2009

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 8:33 am
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Hi people here is hopefully the first of three probably brief pictureless dispatches from the muddy fields of the Reading Festival. Well not too muddy actually but judging from my drive down from York I reckon Leeds could be very muddy! In fact the whole journey down was a bit of a nightmare thanks to a combination of rain, wind and roadworks. I finally arrived on site around 4.30pm and met up with my good friend Nick. He had already seen quite a few acts, including the excellent Temper Trap who I would have loved to have seen, oh well never mind there really is plenty more on offer. We decided to largely go for quantity today which as it turned out was sometimes at the expense of quality.

First Main Stage band I saw today was the Deftones, I wasn’t overly impressed actually, in fact I didn’t know they were still around. I’ll save the magnificent headliners until last as they were the only other band I saw on the Main Stage.

We were in the NME Radio 1 Tent quite a lot. Nick also caught Little Boots’ set which he said was very good, that was another I missed. But I did see the last part of the Horrors show, I thought it was ok but perhaps a bit derivative of many 70s influences, I felt a big bit of Gary Numan in there somewhere. Although obviously I can’t comment on which bit! Next up in here was the wonderful Jack Penate. A great set that really had the crowd and indeed the tent bouncing! This was followed by Florence and the Machine. She is something else. Supremely talented and very quirky with a great stage presence. How she climbed the stage rig with those heels I’ll never know. Her songs sound like she has listened to Kate Bush and Bjork and mixed that with a significant amount of her own talent. Her wardrobe appeared to look as if someone from Victoria’s Secret had dressed Stevie Nicks off of Fleetwood Mac!. We also saw most of the Friendly Fires set. Amazing band and I think exactly who Wild Cherry were talking about in the 70s when they sang “Play That Funky Music White Boy”. I also like Jamie T of whom we watched a couple of songs, I thought he was ok, he certainly knows how to play the audience.

On the Lock-Up  Stage we caught the Bouncing Souls a US punk band that have been around for 20 years but still sound fresh. We saw a couple of songs from Alexisonfire, I wasn’t impressed particularly. Later Anti-Flag were superb, mixing punk and politics in a good way and in a way that hasn’t been done since the Clash!

On the Alternative Stage we took the offer of free 3D glasses and saw 20 minutes of George A Romero’s (it was him wasn’t it?) 3D ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ We also saw one song from Everything Everything on the BBC Introducing Stage, they struck me as the Scissor Sisters meet Indie with a bit of Prog thrown in.

OK and finally we saw the whole of the Kings Of Leon show and never mind if your sex is on fire this band was on fire. I think I’d forgotten how many great songs they have. Probably one of the best headline acts I have seen here in all the years of coming.

On a separate note I reckon the flag ban this year certainly took something away from the atmosphere. What do you folks think?

Oh well now it’s time for a shower, a cup of tea and a leisurely breakfast before Day 2 of the festival starts. Shower? At a festival? I hear you say, well I’m not camping. I don’t do camping 😉 But to all of you who are I hope you were comfortable and that you don’t smell too much!