Reading Festival (updated)

Reading festival was immensely awesome, besides the fact that I had a painful jaw the whole time.

Just before going to reading I needed a tent. I went on good advice to check out Argos, and it was a totally different shopping experience.  You get this catalog which is about 4 inches thick, and you type in the item numbers into a computer then check it out. You wait in a waiting room and some dude comes out with it. It’s like online shopping, at a retail store. The tent I got was awesome though, shit to carry but it was a quickdraw which meant you opened it and bam, spring loaded instant tent.

I got to reading casually late, by a day and a half. I didn’t know it started on the thursday night (the camping part) and had a bus booked friday morning. I was surprised when I got the call from a couchsurfer mate asking where I was on the thursday night. By that time, my jaw was slightly throbbing but I thought I could deal with it.

Come friday morning, I left early to get to Victoria Coach Station. Jaw status was painful. And to make it worse, Calcot is not even close to where the festival was. Google maps shows 1 hour 15 minute walk but it took us (us being me and some chavs I met at the station who stole a trolley and put our shit on it and started to wheel it down until we were stopped by local cops) around 3 hours, getting lost and taking breaks. I was carrying 2 bags, a tent, sleeping bag and air mattress thing. We arrived at Calcot at 12:30pm, and the venue at 4 or so. I went to the White Camp to set up camp, and missed deftones (which would make it a nice 3 times now). On the friday I did see Placebo and Faith No More. It was enjoyable for the first part of the night until Faith No More, it felt like -2 degrees, high winds and a burning sensation in my mouth. I left right after they played Epic to find the camp, and sleep it off using painkillers and anesthetic. I never even got to meet the CS’er and his mates that day, because they went out to see Kings of Leon and other bands. Nothing is cheap in England, I tell you, 500ml cokes were 2 pounds…. 4 AUD for a coke! Plus you had to buy the festival program, 10 pounds!

Saturday morning as better, finally met the other guys in the camp and had a ball. Went out the whole day on saturday looking at rad bands and having fun, the reading festival is massive with so many campers. The surprise band at reading this year was Them Crooked Vultures which stars John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin,my favourite ginger Josh Hommes and bearded drummer Dave Grohl. It was awesome to see. We got home half way through gossip, and sat next to a nice fire some Welsh guy started. We did silent disco’ing until 4 in the morning, so very strange seeing people dance around to no music, but it was awesome. Awesome as in, fun to do with a couple of drinks but undeniably stupid.

Sunday was pretty enjoyable. We started the day with some campyard cricket, and I presented the aussies well. Hit a few fours (at least it would have been a four) and 3 nice cattle sweeps. We missed deadmau5 for this intense test match, but I have to say I was an amazing batsman against the pommies.

Radiohead headlined and opened with Creep. Life is complete.

The train back was easy. Took 20 minutes to get from reading station to paddington, which beats the 2 hour bus to calcot. The difference was about 12 AUD, well worth it. The train system in England is great.

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Friday:

Fallout Boy

Placebo

Friendly Fires

Kaiser Chiefs

Jamie T (fucking awful brit hiphop)

Faith No More

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Saturday:

Metric

Eagles of Death Metal

Enter Shakari

Surprise Band: Them Crooked Vultures

The Prodigy

Gossip

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Sunday:

Crystal Castles

Crystal Method

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Bloc Party

Radiohead (best setlist EVER…. opened with CREEP)

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Just saw the dentist today. Turns out I need a root canal. Most expensive festival ever.

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