Reading Festival 2010

The UK longest consistently running music festival returns and this year there was no shortage of controversy, and no shortage of mud either.
Background:

Reading is one of the UK's (and the world’s) longest running music festivals. It’s origins date back to 1961 and the National Jazz Festival before it transformed into Reading 1971 and later, Reading & Leeds in 1999. While it’s always been a music festival, it has tended to learn heavily towards hard rock, alternative and indie. Reading’s brief dabble with pop in 1988 headlined by Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler was a disaster of epic proportions leading to wide scale bottling and abuse. Over the years Reading has played host to some of the greatest and most historic headline sets; Nirvana in 1992, New Order in 1989, Neil Young, Bjork & The Smashing Pumpkins in 1995 and more recently Rage Against The Machine and Metallica in 2008.

Along side these classic headliners are the timeless moments good and bad; Daphne & Celeste getting bottled off stage, Arctic Monkeys drawing the biggest crowd in Reading History to Festival Republic stage, Morrissey's live return opening with “How Soon Is Now” and the legendary Stone Roses implosion on the Main Stage, to name but a few. Reading Festival for better or worse captures the spirit of rock and roll in all its druggy, sleazy, dirty glory. This is my seventh Reading, it was my first festival, and while I may have fallen out of love with it in recent years; I do very much hope it will be my last (whenever that time comes).

Organization & Atomsphere:

I decided to take a year off Reading last year (despite my beloved Radiohead playing) so this was my first experience of the new layout, and I have to say, I was very impressed. In the past; the crowd size was expanding and the site seemed to be shrinking. There was no room, the Lock Up Stage and the NME stage were dangerously close and it was hell getting between them (especially if one band was finishing as another started). With a few subtle changes all these problems have been rectified, and I genuinely have no complaints. The site is genuinely spacious and you have easy access to pretty much everything (even the side of stage toilets).

I also have to compliment the security and medical staff. My friend was completely paralytic after drinking way too much, and they gave us all the right advice, and even let us go back stage, as carrying him through the crowd would have been too dangerous. When we got him to the medical staff they were really tremendous and truly caring and helpful. So I can’t thank them enough.

Now while the layout may have improved the sound system has completely gone to pieces. The left side (stage right) of the main stage was a nightmare. There were pockets of complete inaudibility, with the left speaker (stage right) seemingly breaking down for almost all of the Saturday acts. Even on the much better balanced right hand side the sound was still far too quiet compared to past years and other festivals. Certain bands (Arcade Fire) managed to get loud sharp sound while others (NOFX, Gaslight Anthem, Lostprohets) struggled terribly with sound issues. Chants of turn it up were common place until around mid day Saturday when things seemed to improve. It was truly bizarre you got better sound quality at the back of the field by the burger vans than you did in the front section. This was very annoying and a real disappointment as part of the reason I always favored Reading festival above others, was because of its normally top notch sound quality.

Finally the atmosphere and I have some very mixed feelings. The crowd was certainly friendly this year, it was easy to strike up conversations with random people and to dance around with random girls (and boys for that matter). The crowd was also very helpful when my friend was in a horrendous condition. However, despite their pleasantness this years crowd was noticeably less musically knowledgeable. There were lots of annoying shouts of “play a song I know” and the crowd seemed to only know big hit singles (on the main stage particularly). Now this might sound normal but Reading used to have one of the best crowds that would sing as passionately to indie outsiders The Wedding Present as they would to the commercial juggernauts the Foo Fighters. Those days seem to be long gone, Reading feels like just another festival, almost like a fashion show, “the place to be” rather than a meeting of passionate music fans. Now I don’t mean to be a grumpy old man, everyone had a great time, and I was certainly having the time of my life jumping around, but with each passing year you can’t help but feel that the special “Reading atmosphere” is or already has disappeared.