Reading festival

guilliano

I went for the day yesterday and had an amazing time, except for one thing...... the headline act! Kings of Leon were bloody brilliant, a fantastic live band and had the crowd eating out of the palm of their hands and going mental, but for some reason had it in their heads that they weren't welcome (a conservative estimate of 100,000 crowd were there for them). They then proceded to have a go at the crowd, quite literally, saying that nobody wanted them there and that they were sick of us. We (as a crowd) were sworn at, insulted and finally the band stormed off sticking middle fingers up and destroying a speaker while a bemused mass of people who'd loved every second of the performance (apart from the mindless bitching of the singer) wondered what the hell they had to do to show their appreciation.

I admit I was one of the many there who had never really heard much of their music beforehand, but had it not been for the attitude of the band I would have happily paid to go and see them live again, along with buying their back catalogue.

On a positive note, a band I have never really rated (but know various songs fom), the Kaiser Chiefs, have earned my unending respect and admiration for an AMAZING show that ended all too soon and I would happily pay to go and see them live again no matter the cost...... along with a few other bands who I had never heard of before.

softlad

I watched a bit of the Kings of Leon set on telly last night - I was wondering why the singer kept shaking his head and snarling. I assumed he was having some tech problems or something, because the crowd seemed to be lovin' it....

iainf72

Watched the Faith No More set online (well, part of it) which was great.

Really looking forward to Radiohead.

The rest of it strikes me as generi-rock. That's possibly because I'm getting old but even the dance stuff seems fairly pedestrian.

guilliano

I wanted to go see Faith No More (fave band from my late teens), but I was jammed in after Kaiser Chiefs and it wouldn't have been a good idea to leave my GF alone at the main stage. Looking back she wishes she'd gone to see Faith No More as well now. Might have to have a look online for their show

andy162

Even these supposedly edgy alternative bands will manipulate their image to sell records. KoL have sold millions of records and need to keep the ball rolling. A blinding set with all the "hits" will keep the masses happy & the abuse etc will generate extra column inches in the music press. It adds to the rock star persona that they will need to perpetuate.

Practically every act be it mainstream, dance, rock or alternative will have a record company investing £X in them, and they want a return. So management tactics are very clever in order to attain this.

It's not the case that any good record will sell by the shed load. It needs to very carefully marketed and plugged on the radio. I swear if Radio 1 played a drunk whacking a dustbin at 150bpm and told us it was new, out there and exciting the kids would buy it. Anything playlisted on R1 on rotation will chart. Mostly crap chart fodder.

It wouldn't suprise me if KoL were pulling a bit of a stunt.

Andy

stuaff

Capacity at Reading is about 85k, I think. FNM were fantastic at Brixton back in June, the bits I've watched from Reading look excellent as well. Saw them four times first time around, they've certainly not lost it. IMHO, they should have been main stage (but the Download contract probably prevented that). Lots of audio and video of various European tour shows floating around on torrent sites.

iainf72

The Radiohead set was ace from what I saw on the Beeb.

Always love Idioteque live.

Frank the tank

Did anybody actually do any reading though?

nicensleazy

Great stuff!