You have to be reasonably fit to go to Reading Festival – I mean fit as in physically able not attractive. For all I know, ‘fit’ hasn’t been used as a reference to someone’s appearance since 1997. It’s a long walk from the entrance on Richfield Avenue to the actual entrance, and even longer if you’ve parked in a multi-storey car park in town to avoid the £80 fine – sorry, ‘cost’ – for parking on site.
Finally, having passed a drug dog and a bag check, we arrived at the ticket place. I say ‘ticket’, but the ‘ticket’, which was £125 for the day, was a barcode on my phone, which required numerous emails to access and plenty of sanity-checking at home in the run-up to the festival. Back in my day, you paid a sensible price for a piece of paper and the bands were good.
After walking another quarter of a mile through a gauntlet of eateries, we arrived at the music part. To our immediate left was the BBC Introducing Stage, on which a band called Daydreamers were playing. I’m writing this two days later, and I can’t remember a thing about them apart from their name. We debated whether we should have a go on some funfair rides. The debate should have been very short once we’d seen the prices. £8 to go on a Waltzer? £32 for a family of four? I was angry, and we’d only been there for half an hour.
The first band we saw on the Main Stage was called Crawlers. I do remember them for two reasons: the singer’s unnecessary use of the f-word, and the fact I don’t remember any of their songs. They left, and in the space of ten minutes, our serene section of parched grass became the stomping ground of lairy youths. This was because an act called Bru-C was about to take to the stage. While he got his act together, a gleeful DJ pressed a button and emanated some pleasingly daft beats. Then Bru-C joined him, and while everyone else seemed very familiar with his gibberish, I was mentally transported to a Basingstoke council estate and fights and Kappa trousers.
The highlight of the festival for us was James Marriott, who, at the insistence of my daughter, I had actually heard of. I’m particularly fond of ‘Romanticise This’, which reminds me a bit of my favourite Texan post hardcore band …And You Will You Knows Us by the Trail of Dead. Marriott had been denied the opportunity to perform at Leeds because of high winds, which I think made him even more determined to put on a show. He has a very distinctive voice and looks like he doesn’t take himself too seriously. I approved. 9 out of 10.
The next band my daughter wanted to see was Beabadoobee, which is a word I still can’t say aloud, and which isn’t even technically a band. However, Beabadobodobee wasn’t on for a few hours, so I looked at the names of the remaining acts on the phone I was obliged to have to enter the festival and I read about some of them on Wikipedia. I decided that we should go to the Chevron Stage to listen to a chap called Dom Dolla because his Wiki entry mentioned house music. The stage itself and the lighting and the flame throwers in sync with certain beats were all truly impressive, though I was once again struck by blandness. I felt like I’d stumbled onto an executive’s yacht, on which everyone was killing time before ‘Dave’ Guetta showed his face. Dom asked us all to show our hands, but I kept mine in my pockets. I would say this was a deliberate display of listlessness, but I honestly didn’t care at this point.
For dinner, we had a choice of approximately one thousand more eateries. When I was last at the festival 24 years ago, I swear there were about 15 burger vans and that was it. Here, there was souvlaki, tapas, wraps, noodles, haggis…but one thing that united them all was their eye-watering prices. We plumped for cheesy chips, which at £7 a tray was a relative bargain. Except, it wasn’t. £5 for just chips plus £2 for a few gratings of cheese. ‘It’s important that we have protein,’ my wife said. This is true, but the daily recommended protein intake for a mouse is not sufficient for my weary, culture-starved body. And then there was the litter – piles of the stuff. Actual piles left like little effigies of the filthy consumers who left them there despite bins being within arm’s reach. Just as we finished our ‘meals’, three people with bin bags and pickers came to remove the carnage, or rather this is what I thought they would do. They were only interested in every third item that was directly in front of them, as their conversation about their abysmal wages was more than important than deviating two centimetres to pincer-grab a tub of half-eaten chicken.
It was then time to see Beabadobodobee. She spent the first song frowning to someone off stage, then she disappeared as soon as the song was finished. After presumably sacking a sound engineer, she returned and apologised for her vocals (they were great) and carried on playing what I’m going to call ‘grunge music for garden centres’. The lead guitarist looked like a cross between Philip Seymour Hoffman and Gunter from Friends, but I really should have been too busy enjoying myself to be making such observations. Beabadobodobee said she had dreamt that no one would come to see her. I once dreamt that I was at a festival full of original and exciting artists, but alas, a dream it shall remain.
We waded – literally waded – through litter in the dark as Liam Gallagher began his set on the main stage. We went to see The Japanese House at the Festival Republic Stage instead. They did this really cool thing where they started playing the first song as soon as they got to their instruments. The drummer was like a jazz octopus – absolutely amazing, and Amber Bain looked utterly delighted to be there. Shame we could only hear the first three songs, as we had to retrieve the car before the car park shut. In the niemandsland between the music entrance and the gauntlet, we saw a man with a tail who looked alarmingly sober.
In the hotel, I glanced at my phone again and read that Oasis are reforming. 2025 is going to be the new 1995! Oh God, get me off this ride, I don’t feel well…
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