1130th
Aug

So Reading Festival was amazing, just as I’d expected it to be! We had a bit of rubbish weather on the Thursday and Friday but it cleared up fairly quickly and we even had some rare sunny patches. Our camp was awesome and we had a great location, so it was smiles all round. We decided this year to go to White Car Park (Green Car Park has a 45 min walk before you even get to the camp site) and we camped at the back in Brown which meant we were all set up by midday, plus we didn’t have the hassle of being surround by 16 year old idiots.

As usual I saw too many bands to talk about them all, but I’ll list my favourites.

My Chemical Romance – They are at the top because they just blew me away. Absolutely incredible. I’ve never really been a fan of them, but I quite liked the new album so I figured I would go and see them, and I think now I’m a convert! They had the stage presence, the over the top outfits, a great show, and a perfect setlist. Then in the encore, when we thought it couldn’t get any better, they bring on Brian May for a cover of ‘We Will Rock You’ and to help out with ‘The Black Parade’. It was exactly what a headliner set should be and I hope they silenced all the people that were moaning about their booking.

Muse – A two hour set including the whole of Origin of Symmetry plus a selection of singles? I was always going to love this. The stage was a massive re-enactment of the album cover, the visuals were massive and the sound was perfect. The only thing that annoyed me was being surrounded by girls who were silent for the first hour, and then screamed along to Starlight.

Pulp – They came on, they played an hour of hits, Jarvis flirted with the audience and climbed the speakers, and their work was done. This was definitely one 90s band reunion that didn’t feel old or rehashed.

The Strokes – I don’t think a lot of people liked their set, due to a lot of album tracks and a weird order as they kept getting told they had to go off stage. I loved it, and I thought Julian was on fine form with his weird drunken ramblings and effortless rockstar cool. They even dragged Jarvis Cocker on stage to do a cover of a song no-one had heard of, but really enjoyed anyway. ‘New York City Cops’ and ‘Take It Or Leave It’ made up for the sad absence of ‘Heart In A Cage’.

Friendly Fires – It’s hard to watch Friendly Fires and not get an insatiable urge to dance, owing to the fantastic beats and Ed’s equally fantastic hip-shaking moves. I don’t think I danced so much during the whole of the rest of the festival. The Hawaiian dancers giving out leis to the audience were a nice touch.

The Kills – I took a friend to see these for the first time and warned her that Alison Mosshart was the most rock and roll person ever, and she came away agreeing wholeheartedly. It was a great performance, although they left out a lot of nice tracks from their earlier albums that seemed to leave a gap in the setlist.

Metronomy – They have slowly got better with each performance I have seen them do this year and this was no exception. The crowd were surprisingly into it (usually their crowd consists of a few fans and some people who know Heartbreaker) and I danced lots, although not as much as for Friendly Fires.

Simian Mobile Disco – Even if you don’t like the music or the dancing, it’s worth watching these guys just to see the bizarre central setup of computers, synths and twiddly knobs, with the two members circling the peripheral while they create their sounds. Luckily for me I enjoy the music and the dancing as well, and a set that included ‘Cruel Intentions’ and ‘Hustler’ made me very pleased.

The Offspring – Not the best I have ever seen them perform and the young audience were a bit lacklustre (they clearly didn’t grow up on Americana like myself and my friends!), but they played all the songs a fan would want to hear so our camp loved it for the nostalgia value.

Here is a selection of photos for your amusement. I think I need a lie down to recover before I set off on my Edinburgh adventure!


Having a relax after setting up the tent


Patrick Wolf


Animal hat friends


Our group for the whole of the Offspring


The Kills and their fantastic backdrop


My mum and my aunt on Pulp/Strokes day


Mr Jarvis Cocker himself


Tim Minchin


A very bad side view of Muse

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1124th
Aug

It’s been a busy week already, what with packing for Reading Festival, planning schedules for Reading Festival, talking about Reading Festival… did I mention I’m excited for Reading Festival?! I’ve also managed to cram in a gig and a show, CSS at XOYO on Tuesday and Batman Live at the O2 Arena tonight. It was also a nice little test of my new camera’s abilities, so hopefully you should see a return of photos with my gig reviews from now on.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the CSS gig, as they had been away from the music scene for a while and their last album was not too well received, but the tickets were cheap and I decided it would be a fun night regardless. I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised as their newer stuff seems to be a return to form and I’m definitely considering buying the new album, La Liberacion, after seeing bits of it live. There was also the usual selection of crowd pleasers and the audience were clearly having a blast dancing along. Lovefoxxx has ditched her trademark catsuits but she is still ever the eyecatching frontwoman and was frequently clambering into the front row and throwing playful banter at the crowd. It was a nice gig, better than the last time I saw them, and I hope I manage to catch them again soon.

Tonight I went with my brother to see Batman Live, which is billed as a kind of family show loosely telling the story of Batman with lots of lights, costumes and acrobatics. I was quite pleased to see that around half the O2 were without children, so clearly Batman has universal appeal! It was a very impressive show with the outfits and fight scenes being the particular highlights. The acting and script for Batman and Robin were pretty laughable, but it was all still very good fun, and the Joker and Harley Quinn’s scenes more than made up for it.

There are a few more pictures on my Flickr set.

Tomorrow we go to READING, so expect my writeup and photos in a week or so.

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1129th
Mar

Following their announcement as Reading Festival headliner last week, Matt Bellamy (on his new twitter account @Bellamy_Matt) has stated that they will play Origin of Symmetry in full as a celebration of its tenth anniversary. Words cannot describe how excited I am for this! It’s widely regarded as their best album and the rare chance to see some of the lesser played tracks will be a great draw for many of their fans. I’m assuming they will play a selection of hits as well, which should hopefully keep the level of Resistance songs to a minimum.

I haven’t really been up to much over the past week. On Friday I went to the Tate Modern on my lunch break (it’s just round the corner from my workplace) to take some photos of the Sunflower Seeds installation by Ai Weiwei. It’s a pretty spectacular sight, and I was very tempted to take one as a souvenir. I had a look at the upcoming exhibitions and I think I might buy a Tate membership as it would probably save me money. Plus it would encourage me to go to more exhibitions in the future.

This week sees my gig draught finally come to an end, with Patrick Wolf tonight and a whole host of others over the next eight days. Sadly there will probably be no photos as my small camera is gone and I don’t fancy trying to smuggle my large camera into most of the venues, but there will be enthusiastic reviews to make up for it!

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1121st
Mar

The Reading Festival lineup was leaked early yesterday afternoon, and there was only a short wait until the official announcement confirmed that it was true. A lot of naysayers are claiming that The Strokes and My Chemical Romance aren’t big enough to headline, but everyone said that about Arcade Fire and Blink 182 last year and look what happened.

Personally I am very excited about the initial run of bands that are playing, as there are some of my favourites in there. Everyone in our camp has already agreed that The Offspring is the place to be on Friday evening! The announcements of Patrick Wolf, Death From Above 1979 and The Kills back up the predictions I had, and I’m so happy to be seeing them all again.

The best of the lineup so far:

Muse
Elbow
Friendly Fires
Enter Shikari
2manydjs
The Streets
DFA 1979
Warpaint
Chapel Club
Peter Doherty
The Strokes
Pulp
Madness
Two Door Cinema Club
The Joy Formidable
Janes Addiction
Crystal Castles
Bombay Bicycle Club
The Kills
The Offspring
White Lies
Metronomy
Patrick Wolf
The Horrors

Speaking of Death From Above 1979, they played their comeback show in a secret slot at the SXSW festival this weekend and it looked insane. Check out the footage below for the riots and massive crowds of people who tried unsuccessfully to get in.

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1114th
Mar

I’ve been a blog writing machine over the past week! I have been quite bored at work, I’ll admit.

I have big exciting news; my Ai ball jointed doll has been shipped. Luckily his clothes, wig and eyes arrived earlier last week, and I bought some pastels and sealing spray at the weekend for his faceup. Since buying him in January I’ve slowly been purchasing various items of clothing, accessories and art materials and now I have pretty much everything I need. I estimate he will arrive sometime during the week (depends on how long customs keep him) so I can get a good start on him at the weekend.

Another tidbit of exciting news, the creators of Tatty Devine have signed a deal with Virgin for a book on how to make your own jewellery. It’s not out until October but it sounds like the perfect thing for crafty jewellery-DIYers.

I watched Girl Walks Into A Bar on Friday, and was pleasantly surprised by it. It was very funny in places and slightly reminiscent of a Tarantino film with the mysterious, punchy dialogue. I enjoyed how the plot linked the main characters together, but I do feel that some of their individual stories were not resolved very well, simply ending with a tacked on line from another character. All in all it was a pretty good film and definitely worth watching as it is free!

Youtube Channel

On Sunday I finished Supernatural Season 2 and I think I enjoyed it more than the first season. The arc was more interesting and it had some brilliant individual episodes (like Heart which had me bawling, and Tall Tales which had me crying with laughter). I’ll move onto the third season this week, which is slightly shorter due to the writers strike so it shouldn’t take me that long to finish.

Afterwards I watched Howl, the experimental biopic of Allen Ginsberg starring James Franco. It is made up of scenes from the obscenity trial on ‘Howl and Other Poems’, faux-interview footage with Ginsberg (Franco) during the trial and animation to accompany the poem. Despite the hodgepodge of formats it was still quite interesting, and I think the animation was particularly effective. My problem with the film was that it was too short and didn’t touch on each subject enough. They could have gone into more detail about the trial or Ginsburg’s life, but they didn’t. It left me wondering what the point of the film was.

Next Monday is one of the most exciting days on my music calendar; the lineup of Reading Festival is revealed. Rumours are certain that Muse will headline the Friday, The Strokes on Saturday and My Chemical Romance on Sunday, but any news on other bands or stages has been scarce. I’m hoping for some Death From Above 1979, Blood Red Shoes and The Kills. Luckily I’ve only got one ticket to buy in the general sale as everyone else bought theirs in the presale last year. It’s always a stressful hour trying to connect to the rubbish Seetickets servers.

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