Reading Festival 2008: Friday - "Band Implosions, returns and dissapointments"

So after arriving on the wednesday night and having a full day of hang on thursday, it was pretty good to see some actual bands play by the time of friday; despite probably being the weakest of the three.

It was with great sadness but also some pride to see the final blow to Be Your Own PET on the Friday. We already knew that it was all over for them after these shows and what emerged was a sarcastic and bitter band whom were clearly frustrated and hence the break up. It was a messy set and they didn't really seem to care but when you're a punk band at times that can be brilliant; 'Bicycle', 'Damn Damn Leash', ' Bunk Skunk Trunk'. Really it was quite sad to see them go out like this, I only hope their real final show in London (and liverpool last night) is better. For me though, all it proved was that people never got what was once one of our most hyped and loved band of nashville teenagers.

Biffy played 'Puzzle', and MGMT and Vampire Weekend I gave a wide birth after seeing their pleasing but crowded sets at T in the Park a month earlier so it was upto Queens of the Stone Age to save the day and, to the wonderful sunburnt sky, did with aplomb. A fantastically varied and interesting set which saw at least one song from every album and the abilty to just rock out. Josh Homme still has one of the best voives in the business; and he proved that with a wonderfully stripped down version of 'Go With the Flow' as an opener. What followed was a huge sound (if you were standing in one of the few bits of field where it sounded good) and some excellent jams including 'Millionaire', 'A Song for the Dead' and a 'Regular John/Sick Sick Sick' medley. awesome.

I wish I could say the same for Rage. This was my second attempt at seeing the band that changed a lot for me years ago and still I just couldn't get into it. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, I mean, there wasn't really anything wrong with the set as such as it was still tight and very loud, but for me there was something very flat about it. I guess I didn't believe in the passion they were trying to put across - the show felt kinda forced to me, let alone the bizarre entrance which just seemed like bad taste to me. That and they pretty much only played songs from the self titled album and 'The Battle of LA' - the two albums I consider to be the worst and most overplayed and overhyped - and thus barring a pretty good version of 'Ashes in the Fall' it just didn;t do anything for me. In the end I gave up and saw the end of Less than Jake who were pretty excellent; 'Gainsville Rock City' probably being a festival highlight.

Number of known Nirvana covers: 1; Pennywise - Territorial Pissings
Number of Johnny Marr sightings: none.
Hours awake: 21.

2008

British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Meneguar - The In Hour
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Earth - The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull
A Silver Mount Zion - Thirteen Moons 13 blues

upcoming:
Deftones - Eros
Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling
Deerhunter - Microcastle
Rolo Tomassi - Hysterics
Okkervil River - The Stand Ins
FUCKED UP - THE CHEMISTRY OF COMMON LIFE (released on my birthday)