The good the bad and the ugly from Reading...
For starters... the bands I saw...
Graham Coxon, Elbow, The Coral, Queens of the Stone Age, The Killers, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Razorlight, Biffy Clyro, From Autumn to Ashes, Iron Maiden, Marilyn Manson, Incubus, Funeral for a Friend, Alkaline Trio, Kasabian, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Subways, Death from Above 1979, The Dead 60s, Blood Brothers, Black Velvets, yourcodenameis:milo, Babyshambles, Hot Hot Heat, Sons and Daughters, Boy Kill Boy, The Infadels, T Raumschmiere, Million Dead, Clor, Komakino, Gratitude.
Right... we'll start off with the ugly.
- Possibly the most horrific thing I've seen in my life happened on the Thursday. We were walking to the shuttle boat to go to Tesco's, and I was looking to my right at a security guard, and he was walking down a pathway, when all of a sudden he just fell straight to the floor, face first. He then started having a fit, and a crowd gathered round and nobody really knew what to do. Soon enough he started coughing up blood and puking... it doesn't sound that bad, but really, I thought he was dying, and it's actually traumatised me. Maybe I'm just a baby, I don't care. Anyway, we soon left, as well, it's rude to stare, but we asked for him later that day and apparently he was fine. I don't know whether it was drugs or epilepsy or what that caused it.
- My tent getting slashed WHILE I WAS f**kING IN IT! My friends tents got slashed too. They didn't knick anything, but my friend found a guy 'sleeping' in his slashed tent, but we reckon he was just in there knicking stuff when we caught him. Seriously, if you want to knick something, why not just f**king use the bastard zip?
The bad:
- Some c**t in the main stage crowd, I think during the Coral, who was just terrorizing people around him, including me, just generally being a c**t. Slapping people, putting his finger in peoples ears as they walked past, calling them names etc... just a playground bully really.
- Carrying all my luggage to Brown campsite on the Wednesday, and back on the Sunday. Yuck.
- The portaloos, obviously.
- McDonalds not doing Big Breakfasts. c**ts.
- The walk back from Tesco and the town. It pisses me off.
- The fact that I have four blisters on my feet, four bruises, two cuts, a sore neck, two pulled leg muscles and an insect bite.
- The freezing cold when trying to sleep.
- Running out of beer.
- Being called a 'fat c**t' on several occasions. Reading is supposed to be about love, not hate!
- A member of security slashing my friends tent! (what the f**k?)
- Having the shits on the Sunday and having to use the portaloos THREE f**kING TIMES.
The good:
- Kasabian. Wow. f**king blinding set, then around 8 people were doing the LSF chant over an over, me and a few others joined in, and soon enough there were hundreds of us doing it, prompting the band to come back out on stage to applaud us, which was nice. Serge mentions in on nme.com too biggrin.gif Security then had to push us out of the tent, so we walked around the main arena chanting it for ages. So good.
- Sing-a-longs at our camp. I completely lost my voice.
- The last night. We were burning some of our tents (including mine.. the ones that got slashed) and, I'm not exaggerating, around 400 people were crowded round. A chant of 'GAZEBO GAZEBO GAZEBO' then started, and the crowd promptly picked up our two gazebos and just threw them into the fire. The crowd then started chanting 'TENTS TENTS TENTS' but luckily security intervened and moved everyone along. It was mayhem for a good while though, so much fun.
- The party tree that was in B11, right next to our tents. So much fun. Some guy was charging people 50p to do back flips on it, he made like a tenner. We tried to set it on fire but it didn't work.
- Me and three of my friends sitting on the B11 road watching the mayhem, as we were the only four left awake from our campsite. On of us fell asleep, and we left him on the road in his chair. After about 30 minutes, we went back, to find a huge crowd round him slapping him and pushing him trying to wake him up (he was so wrecked, he just couldn't wake up if you tried) and some were even TAKING PHOTO'S OF HIM, dubbing him the 'unwakeable man'
- Human buckeroo! How much fun is that game? At one point, the same guy from above was asleep, and we managed to put a whole tent, three chairs, one stool, one huge gas canister and loads more on top of him before he woke up.
- My friend asking to a 'Eagen and Beg sandwich' at the refreshments bar. In our drunken state it was the funniest thing ever.
- Our crazy chant. 'THE MIST, THE MIST, THE MIST OF BEEEEEEER' that we'd chant whenever beer frothed up or someone exploded a can. I still don't get how it's mist, but it made sense at the time.
- The Shaken Udder milkshakes. Milky Bar ruled. And Jaffa Cake flavour.
- Getting 7 Jaffa Cakes in a mini-Jaffa Cake box RIGHT AFTER I was bragging about how I always got 7 instead of 6. tongue.gif
- Cosmic Jeff and Sparkly Dave. I can't explain them to you, but they rocked.
- The lead singer from T Raumchmiere falling off the stage was the funniest thing I've ever seen
- Going off with about 12 guys singing christmas carols. I suggested 'We Three Kings' and it went down a storm. I then joined a crowd with a trolley, chanting 'TROLLEY, TROLLEY, TROLLEY' and watched some trolley fights.
- Sleeping for 21 hours when I got home.
